Song of the Valley

To be sung in the manner of Chesterton

Splendid rides the sunset o'er the garden of the Lord
Where summer spreads its colors on the hills like emerald wine
And the mowers raise the incense of the grass and of the soil
And the ponds and trees and houses gleam like grapes upon the vine
In the sun that smites the valley with the brightness of a sword:
In this cool and quiet garden in the center of the world
Where the people's death and living makes a song of righteous toil
In this precious piece of nowhere in a corner of the world;
In this garden of the people which is sacred to the Lord.

The Wise Fool Speaks

I kept an orchard once wherein a single apple grew,
As fair as any fruit that any tree has ever borne:
Its skin was firm as willow-wand and golden as the dew,
Its scent was wine and honey on the wind-song morn.

At dawn I came to check the bough and see no leaf was sere;
At dusk I stopped to water all the earth around the root:
So every day I tended it, and stole throughout the year
A thousand careless glances at the slow-ripe fruit.

With every week that passed I waited more impatiently:
The fruit grew daily heavier and brighter in my sight—
Until one day, too early still, I plucked it from the tree
And ate, and found the apple and myself unripe.

birdwatching

write every day just
to stay familiar with words
and learn their ways
                                    like
the pianist who plays each note
a thousand times until
he knows its place by touch.

or is it more like birdwatching?

at the park I saw a man
who fed the birds: he filled his hands
with seed and held them out.
he didn't move. he whistled
and they landed in his hands.
he'd been coming every day for weeks (maybe months)
just to sit
            to watch them
                        wait for them
so they knew him.

people are like birds sometimes.

wouldn't it be nice if
            words came for the asking
faith was instantaneous
            people didn't need to trust?

            but perhaps
it's better this way.

Admonition

The sun, going down in a riot of color,
belies the dreariness of this weary day.
How can the clouds betray me with
a sudden burst of joy? All day
they were content with grey--and now
this outburst.
There was nothing in the day to merit
such a get-up; no cause
for wild bursts of joy; no excuse
for out-of-season gladness.
I was content to let the sunlight pass
in weary contemplation. But these
unruly clouds have upset my thoughts
with their joyful shouting; all this
reverberating color
rebukes me into praise.

I was sure the day was coming
to a gentle, silent stop;
but the sky has forced a humble
exclamation-mark upon it.

The Maid upon the Road

He:
Come with me, my pretty, and give me thy love
And I'll promise thee love and the world beside:
I'll tie up thy tresses with ribbons y-wove
And one day thou wilt be my bride.

She:
Swiftly indeed thou wouldst give me thy love,
But I'll not be so swift, and I'll not give thee mine,
For another fair maiden I've seen by the road,
Walking slow near the stream where the willows twine:

She sang: "I gave him my heart and my love,
And he promised me love and the world beside;
But I now walk alone in the willow-grove
And he seeks after another bride."

So I'll not be giving my heart or my love
To just any who ask, or who promise me fine:
For the man who desires my heart must prove
That he's worthy to keep it, ere I give him mine.

The Poem

A string of words is a dangerous thing,
For no man knows where it will stop
Save he take up the strands, and following,
Discover its end, or read till he drop.

Unfurled on the page lay the poem before him,
Inviting him in with its ink-lettered glory,
Calling him sweetly to read of its verses--
(Oh, the innocent lure of those letters!)
So he took it up slowly; and the tugging words caught him
And carried him on, like a stream rolling swiftly
In its widening course, ever deeper and stronger,
O'er difficult passages, from line to line leaping,
Ceaselessly flowing from its source to the sea:
Then he stood at the prow of his vessel of thought
On an ocean of language, and the surging waves
Bore him up higher and higher, till breathless
He clung to a lifeline of thought--and the billows
Upswelled to a toppling summit, and he saw
Through the spindrift a deepening valley--
(And the sea bore him on, while the wind sang past)--
Then he fell from his boat and was tumbled by currents
Under words, over words, eddying round him,
Till they caught him and tossed him and sucked him down under
And he drowned in the plunging word-swell of the sea.

For a string of words is a dangerous thing,
And no man knows where it will stop
Save he take up the strands, and following,
Discover its end, or read till he drop.

An Epic

Lo! In a morn of the dwindling winter,
when earth-frosting all lay melting to mud,
in that day was decreed that the trash must be taken
out to the street. (And oft we have heard
how such things are forgotten and left still to linger,
o'erflowing the lid.)

In darkling of night, after breath-freezing dusk,
an inkling returned to those ill-fated boys
of the deed unaccomplished. Desperate they rose
and donned their jackets (well-proven weeds
in elder days woven to stand against cold)
then silently (so they would not wake the neighbors)
they slipped from a side-door and lifted the trashcan.
They bore it between them, a bier of banana-peels,
lightly o'er gravel to the end of the driveway.
Then racing they ran over wintery leaves
(sodden, not crunchy like leavings of autumn)
and returned to the household with tale of their daring.
Hail them heartily, those domestic defenders,
trial-proven warriors, the home-coming heroes.



(Of course, a really first-rate Anglo-Saxon poet would have gone over the history of the jacket-makers and their well known family disputes, given the boys' family tree, and probably thrown in the trashcan's to boot. But oh well.)

Okay, it took a couple of days

But I think I "get it" now. The Beehive posted a challenge, they listed some neologans (neologs?), which are made-up words. Shakespeare made up his own words , so it's nothing new. And they challenged their "Beehive Faithful" to write a poem using all the words. This is Tim's poem. Today it hit me that, in this poem, the Neologist makes up words, and Strunkenwhite is the proper language itself. And now I get it, and it's really funny! You'll have to click on the Beehive link to see their original post and a list of the words that had to be included in the poem.

Long ago (three days, you know)
there was a dreadful fight
between a Sir Neologist
and one Sir Strunkenwhite.

First "Snoitatulas, sirrah!"
said Sir Neologist.
Sir Strunkenwhite spoke not a word,
but only clenched his fist.

Then fully clad in armored plates
(spendiferously bought)
those two aku-akued across
the field, and staunchly fought.

Up and down the field they fought
and took dismayful wounds,
smiting not with swords alone
but eke with piercing words.

"Do improbe your strokes, Sir Strunk,
or else you've lost the fight:
loserish attacks ne'er yet
availed a losing knight."

"Nevermind, Neologist,
just keep your own defense:
neologistic tendencies
don't prove linguistic sense."

But in the end Neologist
defeated Strunkenwhite
and laid him out upon the ground
with sound like dynamite.

"Aha, sirrah! Gahbooleah!
you're at my mercy now."
And, speaking thus, Neologist
let fall the fateful blow.

"Gahbooleah! Gahbooleah!
O frabjous day!" cried he--
and quickly turned hysterious
in his excessive glee.

Alas for Sir Neologist!
He overdid his mirth,
and soon he lay by Strunkenwhite,
quite dead upon the earth.

Therefore friend beware, lest you
should suffer Neo's lot;
play with language if you will,
but see you kill it not.

In Autumn

Another poem written for creative writing class (which is finished now).

In Autumn

The wind comes from forgotten lands
of ancient hills and elven strands
to tease remembrance in the mind.
You'd think the air was brought
purposely to wake the thought
of elder day or foreign clime.

The leaves are like an unknown tongue,
each a word, in piles flung,
sentence-deep around the trees.
The earth speaks, too (squish! squash!)
And the treetops (swish! toss!)
In a roil of branchy seas.

They tell of something just beyond
mortal grasp; like a fond
memory, but deeper, higher.
I cannot see what's behind
the invitation of the wind—
I know the Something stirs desire.

Burning

A pine needle hung above the fire
Sweating in the blazing heat
Then leapt, engulfed in short-lived spire
Of living flame. It curled and hissed—
Became a coiling, writhing snake,
An ashen serpent breathing smoke,
A memory of the ancient drake—
A twisted glede of glowing wire—
Till, burnt by its own flame, it broke
And lifeless fell into the pyre.
When all the flames had died away
And fire had quench'd its burning lust
There nothing of the snake remained
But lightless, shapeless, lifeless dust.

Freedom of Religion

Don't read our Constitution, friend,
Lest you should recall
Our history--which is, you know,
Unconstitutional.

Mention not the name of God
Nor speak of your religion:
This our Fathers clearly made
A breach of Separation.

Nor our motto nor our pledge
Are we allowed to say,
But (minus Christianity)
God bless the USA!

My Dragon

I've started my "Final Project" for creative writing class, which for me is a book of poetry. I should be writing four or five poems a week for the next six weeks. Some of them will probably end up here; I'll see how it goes. As for this poem...what can I say, I like the idea. Dragons and beds and microscopes make an interesting combination.


I found a dragon yesterday.
It shone like emerald where it lay,
sunning on my comforter.

I picked it up with careful touch
and stared at it. It didn't care much,
quiet while I fingered it.

I got a microscope to see
it closer, what its shape might be:
such a little dragonet!

But oh--tis not a dragon 't all!
only a bit of moss let fall--
a little bit of moss, that's all--
my disillusioned dragonlet!

The Wind

I wrote this for a creative writing class I'm taking:

Summer turns to autumn,
Leaves begin to brown;
With a rush of branches
The wind comes dancing down.

She teases all the trees--they
Toss their haughty heads,
Dropping summer's raiments
Upon the grassy beds.

She races to retrieve them--
Gives chase across the lawn--
Twirling, spinning, whirling
Until her breath is gone.

Only for a moment:
She soon returns to play,
Chasing with the faded leaves
The fading year away.

Autumn turns to winter,
Golden turns to grey
I see the changing colors--but
I saw the wind today.

Who Has Seen the Day?

Who has seen the day
Falling into night
And kissed with every quiet breath
The swiftly-fading light?

Fear not; falter not
For the sun will rise
And in the morning a new day
Will greet thy shining eyes.

Who has seen a life
Fading into death
And mourned with every passing day
The swiftly-failing breath?

Weep not; sorrow not
Though a life may end--
For surely as the darkness falls
The day will come again.

Of Men and Makeup

or, An Idea for a Poem Stolen from C.S. Lewis

Makeup is a made-up face,
A base attempt of man to trace
God's loveliest immortal lace
Which it, succeeding, does efface.

Lady, if my conscience reigned,
Although your so-called beauty waned
I'd ask from such things you refrained:
Your face is better left unstained.


Alas, even my poetry frames an argument. This is rhetoric gone too far: the work of the poet hampered by the mind of the logician. But ah well, it is what it is. Consider the argument framed.


I also like this verse, with a different rhyme scheme:

Makeup is a made-up face,
a mask of vanity composed;
hiding God's immortal lace
behind a curtain mortal closed.

And here is C.S. Lewis's original poem:

Lady, a better sculptor far
Chiselled those curves you smudge and mar,
And God did more than lipstick can
To justify your mouth to man.

Edit: (Disclamer) The opinions expressed above do not mean that I think those who use makeup will be found guilty at the Judgement, nor indeed that I think all makeup an evil...

Taught is Fate

Several weeks ago I started writing a poem. It was about a man who gets a visit from some sort of spirit: perhaps an angel, perhaps not. I made it to four verses before I quit (complete lack of plot might have had something to do with it). The first three weren't good, but the last was better. The man asks the spirit why he has come, "I called thee not, why art thou here? / Why come unbidden now to me?" The spirit replies:

"Unbidden call me not, nor aught
That happens in thy mortal land:
Ordered all things are, and taught
Is Fate to follow unseen hand."


Yes, I've been reading Faust recently. How could you tell?

Reflections at Twilight

I sat out on the porch swing after the sun had gone down, alone save for an untalkative baby sister. It was a melancholy evening. Not really mournful, but it had a wistful kind of sadness. The wind seemed to speak of it, while the trees listened, ever moving yet ever fixed in their place. It was overcast: the grey clouds diffused the light and softened the shadows. Green lights twinkled slowly all around. Fireflies. They heard the wind too. The night held something of the sadness of the elves, the sadness for that which passes and cannot be retrieved. I could feel strongly the flowing of time. But just as strongly I felt that I was not of time. I am like the trees: always changing, always moving. But ever fixed, standing still while years and time itself blow past. Time flows, worlds pass, ages are forgotten: yet the human soul lives on.