Category Archives: poetry

On today’s theme, about spending time

church, love, poetry

In honor of the day, a favorite love poem by Richard Wilbur. All our loves flow from the Holy Trinity — Happy Valentine’s Day! 

 

A Late Aubade

You could be sitting now in a carrel
Turning some liver-spotted page,
Or rising in an elevator-cage
Toward Ladies’ Apparel.
You could be planting a raucous bed
Of salvia, in rubber gloves,
Or lunching through a screed of someone’s loves
With pitying head,
Or making some unhappy setter
Heel, or listening to bleak
Lecture on Schoenberg’s serial technique.
Isn’t this better?
Think of all the time you are not
Wasting, and would not care to waste,
Such things, thank God, not being to your taste.
Think what a lot
Of time, by woman’s reckoning,
You’ve saved, and so may spend on this,
You who had rather lie in bed and kiss
Than anything.
It’s almost noon, you say? If so,
Time flies, and I need not rehearse
The rosebuds-theme of centuries of verse.
If you must go,
Wait for a while, then slip downstairs
And bring us up some chilled white wine,
And some blue cheese, and crackers, and some fine
Ruddy-skinned pears.
–Richard Wilbur

Of that I must be shriven

poetry,

I love the way Richard Wilbur gets to the heart of things. 

A Reckoning

At my age, one begins
To chalk up all his sins,
Hoping to wipe the slate
Before it is too late.
Therefore I call to mind
All memories of the kind
That make me wince and sweat
And tremble with regret.
What do these prove to be?
In every one, I see
Shocked faces that, alas,
Now know me for an ass.
Fatuities that I
Have uttered, drunk or dry,
Return now in a rush
And make my old cheek blush.
But how can I repent
From mere embarrassment?
Damn-foolishness can’t well
Entitle me to Hell.
Well, I shall put the blame
On the pride that’s in my shame.
Of that I must be shriven

If I’m to be forgiven.

–Richard Wilbur

A Bee and Rain

church, poetry, quotes,

Today in the Orthodox Church we remember among others St. Ephraim (or Ephrem) the Syrian, born in the early 4th century, a theologian and prolific writer of hymns. His prayer we pray daily during Lent.

A book of hymns and meditations by St. Ephraim was collected by St. Theophan the Recluse into A Spiritual Psalter. I would like to spend some time in this book, especially after reading today’s entry in The Prologue of Ohrid, where there is a hymn to Ephraim by St. Nikolai opening with the words,

Ephraim’s heart burns
With love for Christ,
And Ephraim’s tongue speaks
Of the pure wisdom of the Gospel.
Ephraim, the honey-bearing bee;
Ephraim, the fruit-bearing rain!

Just as God sends the bees and the rain to work for our joy and profit, so He sends people like this man. I’d like to keep that image of a buzzing and busy bee in my mind a while; let me drink holy nectar and refresh others the way God uses His creatures and creation to constantly renew my spirit.

And for today, one morsel of honey from this holy bee:

The chutzpah of our love is pleasing to you, O Lord,
just as it pleased you that we should steal from your bounty.

I Met The Bard at La Casita

family, history, poetry, ,

Not long after I met my husband, I spent some time with his family at their cabin in the woods, a humble place called “La Casita.” Later on we took our honeymoon there, and over the years we often visited with our children, using the little house as a base for exploring the redwoods and the beach.

On the knotty pine walls were various odd and antique-y pictures and hangings, things that were too tattered or for some other reason didn’t fit the decor of people’s everyday homes, and one of those was a framed verse by Robert Burns.

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.


I was charmed by the little yellowed plaque and the thought behind the verse, and always thought that I would like to embroider it to post in my own house. I never did that, and when the cabin was sold and the old hangings became available for the taking, I didn’t even take them. I think that verse had lodged itself in my mind and heart so firmly that the original sighting was superfluous.

Today is the birthday of the poet, a good day to hear him giving thanks and to say about him “let the Lord be thankit.”