Unthinkable Wings

(Inter-?) National Poetry Month

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:21:43 GMT

Nominally this is a winter poem - but I think it works well for Passiontide, especially such a snowy one.

( Edwin Muir, One Foot in Eden )

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Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:11:18 GMT

On an entirely different ecclesiastical note: did you know Wordsworth wrote a sonnet to Our Lady? Not a bad one, at that...

Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

Admittedly "I ween" is Wordsworth at his clunkiest, but I do like the last three and a half lines very much indeed.

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Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:27:23 GMT

I had no idea that Gerard Manley Hopkins had translated the "Adoro Te Devote" (a hymn to Christ in his sacramental presence attributed to Thomas Aquinas). It's slightly strange, stylistically - Hopkins was clearly trying to write a 'normal' hymn, metrically (11 11 11 11 isn't all that common, but it does exist), but the stresses do sometimes fall in slightly strange places.

That said, I like it rather a lot (though I'm not sure about the pelican verse):

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

( Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived... )

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In which Tree_and_Leaf is Not Safe in Bookshops, and a poetry spam

Mon, 04 May 2009 11:37:20 GMT

Hmph. Morning has thus far failed at being productive; having discovered I needed to get a friend a birthday present, er, about three days ago, and equally needing hay fever tablets, I sallied into the centre of town, only to discover that Boots wasn't open until 11; which necessitated a protracted hang about in Borders, which, well, I think the phrase is technically 'resulted in', rather than necessitated, spending more money on more books than planned. Ran into Incumbant, and exchanged gulilty glances over stacks of books; he said "You see, this is what happens when you come to a place like this, you have to spend all your time putting down books you've picked up," and I said, "It's putting them down that's the trick," - though I did manage not to splurge on Jim Butcher, so it could have been worse.

On the other hand, I did buy one of UA Fanthorpe's collections, and a nice little book of 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (not kailyaird, honest!) which, though sadly lacking in Buchan, has a good selection of obscure but good stuff, including some which was new to me:

Mary’s Song

I wad ha’e gi’en him my lips tae kiss,
Had I been his, had I been his;
Barley breid and elder wine,
Had I been his as he is mine.

The wanderin’ bee it seeks the rose;
Tae the lochan’s bosom the burnie goes;
The grey bird cries at evenin’s fa’,
‘My luve, my fair one, come awa’.’

My beloved sall ha’e this he’rt tae break,
Reid, reid wine and the barley cake;
A he’rt tae break, an’ a mou’ tae kiss,
Tho’ he be nae mine, as I am his.

Marion, Angus (1866-1946)

RELIJUS SUBTEXT IZ BAIRLY SUBTEXTUAL

( And, from the Exile's corner: )
( And, even more so: )
( However, let us not be sentimental, even about Scotland: so here is an excellent poem of political advice to our lords and masters at Holyrood (or anywhere else): )
( And finally, as a warning to all academics inclined to take themselves too seriously (which is about 99%, and I count myself in the majority), a jolly exercise in quasi-Middle Scots )

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NAPOMO: Gerard Manley Hopkins

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:17:00 GMT

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Gerard Manley Hopkins. I do love this poem.

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NAPOMO: Rowan Williams - Low Sunday

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:13:04 GMT

Low Sunday: Abu Ghosh

Calm, fluent, the Mass moves
like robes on a walking body, upright
and in no hurry, the chanted French
swings loose between the stresses.

Finding its way in here
something not quite the hard dawn,
crackling out of the grave, but
heavy, lumbering maybe, quiet,

As it pads in from downstairs,
lies down and looks at us, something
idle (maybe), breathing just audibly,
not without noticing; not to be avoided.

Rowan Williams

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NAPOMO: Anthem, Leonard Cohen

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:42:17 GMT

I really do love Cohen, and this one means an awful lot to me in its depiction of a broken world, but one from which the divine is not absent, indeed is found in the brokenness (and is taking names with regard to oppression and violence). I think Cohen's one of the greatest mystic poets of our century (he's a much better poet than Merton, even if I'm closer to Merton theologically. Although - Every heart, every heart/ To love will come/ But like a refugee strikes me as very like the truth and, incidentally, very close to Julian of Norwich ("Sin is behovely, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well")

( There is a crack, there is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in )

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