Category Archives: poetry

Sorting lentils and words and….

housework, poetry, women, , , ,

A Woman Cleaning Lentils

A lentil, a lentil, a lentil, a stone.
A lentil, a lentil, a lentil, a stone.
A green one, a black one, a green one, a black. A stone.
A lentil, a lentil, a stone, a lentil, a lentil, a word.
Suddenly a word. A lentil.
A lentil, a word, a word next to another word. A sentence.
A word, a word, a word, a nonsense speech.
Then an old song.
Then an old dream.
A life, another life, a hard life. A lentil. A life.
An easy life. A hard life, Why easy? Why hard?
Lives next to each other. A life. A word. A lentil.
A green one, a black one, a green one, a black one, pain.
A green song, a green lentil, a black one, a stone.
A lentil, a stone, a stone, a lentil.

— Zahrad

I found this provocative poem on this blog post, and have been keeping it in the back of my mind until today when I read a comment by Celeste on this blog post, about her own need to “re-sort.”

The household and garden chores that I pile up around me every day, the practical love for husband and children and grandchildren, the worship of God in His Church such as I enjoyed this morning, the good books and blogs I read, the writing I am compelled to do — they all seem to be represented and connected for me in the images of these lines.

Here I am, once again in the middle of trying-not-to-be-frantic trip preparations, but God gave me an extra hour this afternoon, which meant I could eat some leftover frittata and read a comment on a blog, and look what happened! More sorting of thoughts and realities, with the unspoken urge to order my affections aright and find His peace and strength for the next few hours and days.

Suddenly a word.
A life.

being, being, being

church, love, poetry

The poem below, about being in love, is speaking to me and for me, though of course it’s imperfect for that use, coming from a unique and distinct soul, with his own lonely knowings and loves.

Imperfect, but skilled and helpful, and conveying so much of the humanity that belongs to all of us. Love. God Is Love, and if we do any of this work that is the verb to love it is by His grace. If we feel anything like love coming to us or flowing from us, it is the Holy Spirit, for He fills all things.

The poem might be primarily about romantic love, which is inconstant — not that most of us don’t fail to be steadfast in all our loves. In the second stanza the lover declares his constancy, and in the last admits that his love is “in a moment gone.”

But I can’t help feeling the effusion and mystery of divine Love in it, and am reminded of Christ’s teaching that we ought to first love our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Isn’t all love, whether we are giving or taking, essentially God sharing His Life with us and among us, the Love of the Holy Trinity? He uses people to do it, but after all, we find out that it was The Lord.

IN LOVE FOR LONG

I’ve been in love for long
With what I cannot tell
And will contrive a song
For the intangible
That has no mold or shape,
From which there’s no escape.

It is not even a name,
Yet is all constancy;
Tried or untried, the same,
It cannot part from me;
A breath, yet as still
As the established hill.

It is not any thing,
And yet all being is;
Being, being, being,
Its burden and its bliss.
How can I ever prove
What it is I love?

This happy happy love
Is sieged with crying sorrows,
Crushed beneath and above
Between todays and morrows;
A little paradise
Held in the world’s vice.

And there it is content
And careless as a child,
And in imprisonment
Flourishes sweet and wild;
In wrong, beyond wrong,
All the world’s day long.

This love a moment known
For what I do not know
And in a moment gone
Is like the happy doe
That keeps its perfect laws
Between the tiger’s paws
And vindicates its cause.

~ Edwin Muir

What was I thinking…

church, Lent, poetry, time

In Ephesians 5 we are told to redeem the time: “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”

That admonition comes to mind as I read this poem, published just last year in the New Yorker. It’s by W.S. Merwin, whom I mentioned previously here and here in regard to his book The Folding Cliffs, which captivated me and gave me for the first time an interest in visiting Hawaii. By the way, my husband and I will be doing just that next month to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, which is one reason I don’t think I will be blogging much until after Easter/Pascha.

But back to the poem — it seems to me it speaks of how we can only make up for lost time by being attentive to the gifts that are coming to us right now, attentive to the presence of God. He is giving Himself in the present moment, and He has given us the lenten season to help us tune into that Reality, to come back to it and to Him.

THE NEW SONG

For some time I thought there was time
and that there would always be time
for what I had a mind to do
and what I could imagine
going back to and finding it
as I had found it the first time
but by this time I do not know
what I thought when I thought back then

there is no time yet it grows less
there is the sound of rain at night
arriving unknown in the leaves
once without before or after
then I hear the thrush waking
at daybreak singing the new song

–W.S. Merwin