Sometimes Awe
A book of poetry gathered from a lifetime of wonder
© Copyright 2024
E. G. Happ
Commerce. Michigan
All Rights Reserved
Sometimes Awe
Contents
Introduction
1. Children
As a Child
Christmas ‘92
Michelle
New Words
Green Fingers
Disconnecting the dots
A phone call with Holly before she turns four
Inchworm
Playing
A Child’s Table
An Evening Sonnet
2. Nature
Take a Hike
Divining
Seasons change without us
Stopping where the path turns from the field
Taking out the trash
Turkey Brood
Fog
Flat rocks
Eclipse
Eclipse II
Great Blue
Revival
The Roar
Horseshoe Falls II
The Loons Call
At Grace Cathedral
Giza
Sanctuary
Little Yosemite
Snoqualmie
Gruyere photos
Riding
Bamboo
On the Train to Genève
Green
Humming the Prepositions
The Big House
4. Saints
Mother Marie
Agnes
Richard
John
Joe
Alice
Ann
5. Passion
Passion
Passion: ending ii
The Edge
Communion
Sparks
Golden
6. Art
Trompe l'oeil
Peace
Rising Moon
Two Deer
Boy at the end of a string
A face on the wind
At the 60th Annual Meeting of the Parish
On the Ruelle
Two Chairs
7. Crisis
Crossroads
Contact
Towers
Advent
Listen
In the fullness of time
8. Epiphany
The Yes!
Paths
Blessings
Epiphany
Easter
Epiphany on a Treadmill
Luke
The Edge of Epiphany
Week after Ash Wednesday
Yearning
Epiphany II
Baptism
9. Wonder
Wondering
Nose to nose
Curiosity
Sounds that come and go
Sunday Poem
Sound bites
Wonder
Introduction
In the autumn 2023, our pastor announced he was going on sabbatical to New Zealand, to study their prayer book and the country that was its cradle. His theme was awe. He asked us to consider writing our own reflections on awe, perhaps something to be shared with fellow parishioners. That is how this book was born.
Awe may be elusive to define, but we know when it happens. It may be the mouse in Sharon Olds’ description of what the poet writes. She said, “Poetry, as in therapy, is about backing up the mouse that just ran into the hole in the wall.” [1]
Stop! What just happened? Roll back the tape and do an instant replay in your mind. Write down what you saw. This is often my thought process in writing a poem. The most important word in the sequence, however, is not “write” …it’s “stop!” When we pause, focus, stop the chatter, we are open to listening, to asking “what just happened?” The writing is then recording, like relating a dream after you wake up. That’s a kind of paying attention in reverse to what has just become “past” and a new openness to what may be coming around the corner.[2]
When does that happen? I think we know. As I gathered the poems that I wrote over the past 43 years that mentioned awe, wonder, and epiphany, I was surprised at the number.[3] There were dozens. And what emerged from the gathering were the times when I was in awe: watching, hearing and connecting with people, especially children, who have a wellspring of wonder. There were places I visited, art I saw or heard, an encounter with nature. And then there were those times of worship when the little epiphanies fell in our midst. These were all the times of awe, different in setting, but infused with wonder, nonetheless.
Barbara Brown Taylor writes “Beauty prompts a copy of itself … When you see something beautiful, it stops you in your tracks. It makes you want to replicate it somehow—draw it, write a song about it, tell someone about it.” [4] Over the years in my journey, I’ve written poems along the way, taking snapshots by “fooling around with words.” [5]
So, I invite you, dear reader, to take the journey with me through a lifetime of poems and bring your senses to bear, hanging out over my shoulder and imagining with me as I turn the pages.
[1] Sharon Olds, “Going Public with Private Feelings,” Dodge Poetry Festival panel, Sept. 26, 2008
[2] From an Advent sermon, “Paying Attention,” November 30, 2008, http://www.fairfieldreview.org/fairfield/fairrevw.nsf/lnk/Advent08
[3] There are 86 poems in this collection. The Themes are: Children, Nature, Places, Saints, Passion, Art, Crisis, Epiphany, and Wonder
[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Always A Guest: Speaking of Faith Far From Home,”Westminster, 2020, p. 28
[5] Bill Moyers, “Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft,” William Morrow, 1999.
_______________________________________________________
1. Children
Children are the eyes of wonder in our midst. They are astonished by the new, often pointing and with a gasp, saying “Look!” Jesus said to “suffer the little children to come unto me.” As so we were invited to follow them.
As a Child
If I
could capture
life as a child:
each moment,
an adventure,
a mystery,
a new wooded trail
to explore,
a new sight
to exclaim,
something
to put together,
connect the wires,
press the buttons,
and make it go;
with the wide-eyed
wonder,
awe,
astonishment...
it would be
the closest moment
to when I first
fell in love.
18 Sep 1988
Christmas ‘92
On the threshold
of wonder
and surprise,
what does
the child see
hidden
from our eyes?
The joy
of gifts received,
the love
which speaks reprieve;
the child gives
to you and me
a way to see
beyond the tree
13 Dec 1992
Michelle
(little creator, she)
She holds her tiny hand
out from her station
in a sea of toys,
arm extended to the point
of a finger not larger
than the barrel of a pencil.
it is her sign,
mostly of curiosity,
to know what it is,
she punctuates with
an emphatic "dat?"
but also a bond
and call
to her grandfather
who has paused
and leaned over
from his cluttered desk
across the barrel ceiling
of space and time
from here to there
finger extended
to touch her outstretched
point of self.
glowing, connected
in a timeless portrait
of the moment,
grandpa, "dat."
27 Apr 1995
Child Time
(an excerpt)
“It is by its content rather than its duration
that a child knows the time…” –F. Buechner [6]
Such a time
is seeing
my daughter
at three
twirl a yellow
dandelion
between her
fingers slowly
watching each
petal circle
left and right,
right and left,
hypnotically
transporting her
to the poppy
fields in Oz,
with home so
far, far away
in this land
at the end
of wonder
and longing.
8 Dec 1996
[6] Frederick Buechner, “The Sacred Journey,” republished in “Below a Time,” Jul. 15, 2017, https://www.frederickbuechner.com/quote-of-the-day/2017/7/15/below-a-time
New Words
It is from
those wise ones
at the age of three
we hear
language
coming back
at us
as wonderful
as the first time
we learned its use—
a piece of paper,
a clip,
a pen
he describes
triumphantly
as a “contraption”—
while she,
hovering over
pieces of a puzzle,
replies to a question
of what she is doing,
with:
“something very important”—
decorating a tree,
one says, is
“putting on instruments,”
and the other
reacts to “are you sure?”
with a booming and
confident:
“absolutely!”
such words
from little mouths
stir the wonder
in us older folk
as much as I imagine
the point
of a finger
and shout of “look!”
arouses
younger hearts.
27 Dec 1997
Green Fingers
We are counting
Daffodil shoots
the last day of winter—
he is careful
not to step on them—
a struggle at the
age of five—
I am reminded of the
horror films
where the hand
reaches up from the
soil
as we pleaded with
the young actor to move
before it’s too late.
Here,
at the end of the driveway
the green fingers
seek the light,
reminding nostalgic
gardeners
that hope rises up
like the wonder
of a child
counting the tips
of spring.
20 Mar 1999
Disconnecting the dots
She called them blowers
with the wonder of a four year-old;
she held it by the stem
a tiny constellation
at the purse of her lips
and blew--
all the stars in this orb of spores
tailed off into the wind
its dots disconnecting
into the air,
scattered, random.
I was left
with a stamen moist at the end
of a shoot that leaves stains
on my fingers.
It is gone;
or just becoming?
Is it is?
7 Mar 2008
The title of this poem is a chapter title in Dean Slutyer’s wonderful book “The Zen Commandments,” my Lenten reading for 2008.[7] Among other things, the book is about the opposite of the rational mind that ever seeks to connect the dots. In the image of the ripe dandelion, I remember my daughter picking and blowing with glee, I saw that my reality of the Dandelion is my memory of it, my interpretation—and yet it isn’t so, it’s gone. The rational mind asks, “is it becoming?” The Zen master challenges us to see it as simply being. It is.
[7] Dean Sluyter, “The Zen Commandments: Ten Suggestions for a Life of Inner Freedom,” Kindle, March 19, 2001, “Ch. 9, “Disconnect the Dots,” p. 146ff, https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Commandments-Suggestions-Inner-Freedom-ebook/dp/B0030MQJI2/
A phone call with Holly before she turns four
I tell her I went snowshoeing today,
and ask her if she knows what a snowshoe is.
"No," her tiny voice answers, clear as a single high-note bell
I search for the words to tell her.
"They're like really big shoes, but made of metal--
like clown shoes, and you can walk on top of the snow."
"Oh," she says.
"Does that sound like fun?"
"Yes."
I imagine her smiling,
thinking of round serving trays strapped to my feet.
Her mother reminds me that when the snow is crunchy,
she can walk on top with boots.
"Oh," I say, realizing that the wonder of walking on snow
is one of those things that a three-year-old just knows.
29 Mar 2008
Inchworm
She stops every twelve steps,
lets go of my finger
and stoops to get another inchworm—
we have not missed one
on this walk,
each greeted with a gasp
and careful fingers;
even a cluster of leaves blown
from on high
is taken as manna and perch
for this growing colony of wonder;
though home calls over the rise,
she abandons all for this arch of green
thread that moves as if an inch
were gold
12 Jul 2008
Written after a walk with my granddaughter Holly who is amazed by all things crawling. Seeing wonder through the eyes of a child is to rediscover it. She was 4 at the time.
Playing
"...the playing is itself the first fruits of the Kingdom's coming..." --F. Buechner [8]
When I see that look of curiosity
in the tentative toddler's eyes,
nascent body turned into the familiar,
the safe,
holding tight with one hand,
the other pulling on curls
after a halfway point of thumb
and finger
as if to grasp,
at what the head has turned to look,
eyes widening to take in the strange
white bearded face;
I raise my eyebrows twice,
then twice more,
and she is captive to the wonder,
smiling in the delight of seeing
something new,
that just may be
something that happens
once again.
30 Mar 2010
Continuing reading Frederick Buechner's "Listening to Your Life," the passage about play and the Kingdom of God resonated. [8] I was also reminded of Michael Schrage's phrase "serious play." [9] Imagine the play of a child growing up not into something beyond play, as if it's to be put aside, but play in all seriousness as the first fruit of heaven-- wide-eyed wonder may be the golden spectacles through which the hints of that broader reality in which we are held is glimpsed.
[8] Frederick Buechner, “Listening to Your Life,” Harper Collins, 1992, p. 44, https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Your-Life-Meditations-Frederick-ebook/dp/B000VYX9BC/
[9] Michael Schrage, “Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate,” HBR Press, 1999, https://www.amazon.com/Serious-Play-Companies-Simulate-Innovate/dp/0875848141/
A Child’s Table
I come to the children’s table,
the name I’ve given the stone slab
with the low benches,
so that sitting with an open book
upon its top,
my chin is inches from my pen.
And I wonder about the gardener
who placed these moss-stained planks
of gravel and cement—
what was he remembering?
did he have an extra child’s bench
that needed a table home?
Or was this an invitation
to return to early years
when a sense of play and wonder
tumbled in the fresh cut grass,
imagining a tractor tilling
as it rode up and down
the rise and fall
of this verdant knoll
that looks upon the lake below,
toy boats leaving dazzling wakes
in the late day sun,
and if you make the sound
of engines whirling
with an avid brmmmm,
they skip along the top
of barely ripples
and fly to ports in foreign lands.
1 Oct 2011
An Evening Sonnet
She is tugging at her Dad's hand,
impatient to go nowhere in particular,
but somewhere;
she stops and points
exclaiming in a language I
do not know,
but with every gesture I remember.
then she does that little skip and dance
to the joy of walking
and making noise on the pavement
as if this was a canvas snare drum
and the curtain is about to rise;
"if you become as a little child",
my tired feet implore,
heaven may be the first act
when we move from standing up
to stumbling with a hand held high.
14 Apr 2016
From train platform 5, Gare Cornavin, Geneva
Perhaps there was a sonnet echoing here, with the turn in the road for the last few lines. There was a beginning-ending-beginning thread here. The sheer joy of the toddler, and sense of wonder and exploration that is, I believe, a prerequisite of seeing heaven (not the child-like faith so often the interpretation) –and those glimpses are in the here and now, both remembered and anticipated. I was reminded of Barbara Crafton's metaphor of the two woven baskets holding us, and finding in the end that when the inner basket falls away it becomes apparent that the outer basket was there all along.[10]
[10] Barbara Crafton’s story of the life in the two baskets: See [9:30] is this video presentation:
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2. Nature
Perhaps this next poem says best what I want to say. To regain your wonder, enter nature, follow a path, climb to a ridge, take a hike.
Take a Hike
When the mind
stagnates
and clogs with ice
as a winter stream
you have to move,
push back from
the cave of hibernation
and stomp the cobwebs
in your head,
move until the blood
pumps and washes out
the crust
that settles in
around the eyes on
a long January night,
move so the vibration
of your gait
pushes out the wax
from your ears,
jump to the bark
of the dog
that rushes to the boundary
of the property line --
it gets the adrenaline up
with a gasp.
when you move
for a bit,
you hear things
that weren't there before,
your breathing takes on
the soft clean flow
of a spring breeze,
like the shoots
of flowering shrubs in May
you can push out new growth.
move, get up
and walk from here to there.
8 May 1995
Divining
I always wondered
what the man
with the y-shaped
stick
was hearing
through his
fingertips
as he walked
across the
swell of earth
somewhere in
an open field
that had gone
to weed.
Was it the hum
of electric
conduits,
a tremor
of the shifting
plates of
planetary skull,
the drums of a
swollen river
over rapids,
the hiss of
steam from
drawing close
to molten rock,
the slippery
snake of
oil oozing
in the cracks?
This geologist
without the maps,
soil samples,
lab results,
computer models
of resonant images—
this crusty farmer
of Sicilian descent
knows in the
rattle of his ribs:
there’s something
down there
like a tenement
dweller knows
the old subway cars
running through
the basement
and the tall walls
shimmering.
There’s something
down there,
and here is
where we dig.
14 Mar 1997
Seasons change without us
I saw violet crocuses
while driving on route thirty-three
yesterday.
They were carpeting
a still brown-green lawn
like bees on spilled beer--
and I wonder about the gardeners
who come in spring
with their galloping lawn mowers
and wailing sirens of two-cycle Briggs & Stratton engines,
and the homeowner running from the house
arms waving, shouting
no!
not yet.
11 Mar 2006
Morning Constitutional
The old white roan
lifts her head
and watches me
on this curve of road
that leads to her pasture.
Dogwoods sentinel in whites and pinks
a large sun does pull-ups
at the cloud line.
I pace to the weathered fence;
she leans out to me
sad poet eyes so large
I'm lost
Pulsing nostrils
draw me in;
I hold my hand out
for her to sniff
as if I'm Pope.
She nods,
I turn back,
in wonder,
blessed.
4 May 2006
Stopping where the path turns from the field
Something has spooked the geese
at the other end of the field
and they startle me
enough to stop and write this down.
I should say how the sun is low in the sky
and the shadows of the border trees
are long in the pale grass,
how all these brown and yellow October leaves
sound like chewing corn flakes
as I shuffle through;
there is an insistent one-note bird
yelling go, go, go, go
willing me to make my south;
the wind wondering, wild,
rides the hair from my collar;
overhead are unseen aircraft
one after another
traveling elsewhere.
I thought you should know
before I move on.
6 Oct 2007
Taking out the trash
The gravel in the driveway
plays maracas
beneath my shoes
a pink street lamp shrouded
in evening haze
is the sun and moon;
I put the bin of cans and bottles
at the curb and turn around--
There, above the pine trees
is a riot of stars--
I lift up my eyes
and follow the lines
wondering which is
Cassiopeia,
the vain queen
of unrivaled beauty;
in awe,
I am rendered still
before the majesty
2 Apr 2008
For Dean Sluyter's pages on "Taking out the trash" in the “Zen Commandments.”[11]
[11] Slutyer, IBID. pp. 21-23
Turkey Brood
Pulling out the winding drive
I see the movement on my left
on a knee of a hill covered in pines
a brood of a dozen wild turkeys
Mom and Dad
out in the morning shade
foraging among the needles;
as I slow, they scatter
faster, into flight across the road
just as a Beemer brakes, stops,
driver leaning forward
arms crossed atop the steering wheel
looking up at the flurry of fledgling feathers,
sharing the wonder
of being engulfed.
13 Jun 2008
Fog
I imagine flying out of the fog,
up "above the weather" as pilots are keen to say.
The first time my brother saw the fog
rolling over the hills from the Pacific;
he called it the finger of death,
paying homage to DeMille's imagining
the tenth plague;
and speaking of plagues,
I recall my grandmother asking
in Bible-teacher style,
"Can you name the plagues?"
That's a bit foggy
in my brain,
having moved south
with the seven deadly sins
and St. Anselm's proofs.
In church I'd wonder
Whether everything would
be clearer as I got older
as if the fog of wonder
would lift and the fishing lines
running from heaven would tighten.
But sitting here in this cab
winding its way on the back roads
to Heathrow at rush hour,
the only way I can tell the sun has risen
is by the gray glow that makes
the fog seem luminous.
16 Jan 2009
Flat rocks
We are walking on the flat rocks
of a gurgling stream
cascading down the broken
sheets of shale and slate;
the youngest finds a small fossil bone
then the oldest sees what looks like coral
this wonder that pursues remnants of the past
as if they are new births of discovery;
today my daughter and hers
baked an old German peach kuchen,
that arose from a conversation I had forgotten
"what cakes did your mother make?
which were your favorites?"
the history of tastes called up a morsel at a time;
this was an early birthday
and the thread that ran from mother
to partner to daughter
pulled taut for a moment where the flat rocks yielded
to the stream that ran over fossils
and found its earth about our toes
and hearts.
8 Apr 2013
Hiking with my granddaughters in a park in Ohio.
Eclipse
This day of omens
brought out everyone
to the fields, squares and beaches,
to where the horizon and its sky
filled our eyes like panorama photos;
we were ready to see
with our magic glasses and cardboard contraptions,
even colanders--
anything with a narrowing opening,
a blocking of all that would intrude on our retinas,
to a singular vision,
this silhouette
of one orb crossing another--
all that we do to see something we understand
comes only once or twice across our years
and we are ready,
with awe and a sense that this time is one to pay more attention
than any other.
Such are the gifts of epiphanies
that say "look, something is happening here,"
far greater than one disc
passing another
on a white reflected page;
for one held breath,
all we know has aligned.
Will we know
or will it pass us by
as heavenly dreams are
wont to do?
Will we see the total triumph of life
in its darkest moment,
stare at the absence of light,
embrace the death that comes
as surely as the planets turn about
this waning sun?
28 Aug 2017
Eclipse II
This day of omens
brought out everyone
to the fields, squares and beaches,
to where the horizon and its sky
filled our eyes like panorama photos;
we were ready to see
with our magic glasses and cardboard contraptions,
even colanders--
anything with a narrowing opening,
a blocking of all that would intrude on our retinas,
to a singular vision,
this silhouette
of one orb crossing another--
all that we do to see something we understand
comes only once or twice across our years
and we are ready,
with awe and a sense
that this time is one to pay more attention
than any other.
23 Dec 2017
This revision of the Aug. 2017 edition, became the poem for our Christmas video card, 2017.
Great Blue
A great blue heron
is periscoping
atop the neighbor’s fence
getting a good look
at each of the yards
within its grasp,
while I am hidden
behind the glare
of the sunroom windows;
we put out some mixed seed
last night
but it’s not moving
and the heron is especially
watchful of the moving;
I read they are birds of opportunity
but prefer the small fish
or frog
or the slow mouse;
when it swallows,
that neck stretches for the sky
but all I have are tidbits on the ground.
1 Jan 19
Rewritten 7-Aug-23 to correct from Egret to Heron! At our back window, Anna Maria Island, Holmes Beach, FL
Figure 8 - Great Blue Heron – Holmes Beach, FL, Dec. 31, 2018, Photo by EGHapp.
Revival
“He makes me lie down in green pastures *
and leads me beside still waters.
He revives my soul’ –Psalm 23:2-3a
We go to the backyard
after the sun sets
and lie face-up
on freshly mown green grass.
The stars
on a Swiss night
are sharp,
poignant.
There is no twinkle here.
It is mid-August
and we are waiting for the first
Perseid meteor,
a so-called shooting star
making its mark on the vast heavens
that arch above us.
It is a long wait
our voices still,
gazing left and right,
then “There!”
a fleeting presence
that warms
our souls
hungering for
for the touch of awe.
Mon., Apr. 4, 2022
The Roar
Standing next to Horseshoe Falls,
looking over the rail
at the enormity
of the screaming flow
over the edge,
I am filled with awe.
As a young boy
in a Fort Worth church,
as the tornado
tore past the glass walls,
branches and liquid fog
took the horizon,
the roaring wind
drowned out the preacher
and we were frozen
in fear.
Here at the gambling mecca
of the southwest
there is no quiet corner,
the constant yelling, bells,
Muzak take away
any movement,
thinking,
and that’s the point
isn’t it?
9 Jun 2022
Horseshoe Falls II
“Search for the Lord and his strength;
continually seek his face.” –Ps. 20105:4
“See the falls from the Canadian side,”
we are told by friends
who have been there.
“You can get up close.”
Standing there are all
the senses in awe.
The enormity of grasp
or lack of grasp
of the weight of the creation falling;
it is a wonder we can hold on
to the railing and not be swept away.
The rainbow rises in the mist below
and we are reminded.
30 Mar 2023
The Loons Call
For Ann Moore
The loons call to me—
haunting—
the wind moves
through tall stark trunks
of mystery pines
and brings a fragment
that draws me back
to a place
where I weep
for what is not here.
16 Aug 2006
I read this poem and the one titled “Ann” at Ann Moore’s memorial service at the Church of the Redeemer in Toronto, Feb. 3, 2024. This earlier poem is recalled in the later one, among the "Saints", below, with the crying loons.
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3. Places
There are some places that take us out of ourselves. When we walk through the door of a cathedral, or stand before one of the world’s wonders and are rendered speechless. Is it any wonder that Moses covered his face before the burning bush?[12]
At Grace Cathedral
(when the doors were opened)
The gray concrete majesty
of the great cathedral on the hill
dwarfed the pilgrims
who climbed the steep walkways
that lined the cable-whistled streets
climbing Ararat to see
if the Ark still rested
on its craggy moor.
The white-haired cleric
leaned forward from his perch
with voice bounding from every
arch and columned trunk
"the work of God," he said,
"is to love the hell out of us"
--a life long work no doubt.
Yet in this hallowed hall
of terrifying pomp and feared misstep
one wondered whether He was
here to scare the hell out
of us as well.
But when the trio of men
standing to my right
unabashedly embraced
with echoes in their eyes,
it was clear
the doors of grace were opened,
its hand wrapped around this
single pew and touched the grey
tweed shoulder of the pilgrim,
and said to those who held,
no standing on this mount
save standing arm in arm.
4 Dec 1994
[12] Exodus 3:6 “And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” NSRV.
Giza
We are
two
children
standing
hand in hand
on the great
plain of giza
before the
ancient
pyramids.
The wind is
howling
from the
south,
blowing off
the sands
of time
that hold
these tall
stone
monuments,
turning them
green
with waters
running
from their
peak,
palms
ringing their
base,
macaws
echoing their
mating calls
from
peak to peak.
We are
Ramses
and Neferteri,
lovers
ancient and
eternal—
all this rich
history
came rushing
in
in the moment
I held you
close,
and we were
born
so very old.
17 Jan 1997
Sanctuary
"Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet,
for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." --Exodus 3:5
We stand
at the edge
of the newly nailed
oak floor--
sawdust strewn
as sand--
and crane our
necks upward
to the clear-story
windows
where ladders
once stood,
now sun descends--
white shell of a
sanctuary,
like hazy sky
echoing in emptiness--
full of awe,
such are the large places
we go
to be small,
to feel alone
in the midst
of a multitude---
we take off our shoes
so as not to stain
this pristine place
and in a Moses moment
step onto holy ground.
21 May 2000
Written for the new church at St. Francis in Stamford, CT as it was nearing completion. It is ever a special place in my journey.
Little Yosemite
I ask where the trailhead is;
she says, “across the bridge”
and adds the disappointment:
“There's not much water.”
I hike the canyon view
along the ridge, past the cows
grazing on the gold grass
that is California; descending
to the dry river bed—
quartz-laced blue boulders
the size of railroad cars
derailed;
the wind pours over leaves
with an echo of the rapids
not here this time of year;
I stand among them diminished
in my awe,
sentinel the rage of years that washed
over each sharp edge until
sculpture smooth
and let the sun and wind wash me
as if in the Jordan;
I raise my hands
on the other side of drowning.
14 Nov 2008
Hiking in Sunol Ohame State Park, CA
Snoqualmie
The rumble rolls down the path
as a crier at the door;
evoking the expectation
before entering into a cathedral,
eyes lifting to the vault
of a stone ceiling,
the light streaming through stained glass;
I feel the depth of place
before the words come,
the inadequate wide-eyed lens
of the Nikon that chirps back and forth
settling on a focal length
for which a single blink
registers majesty
and has none of it.
So I feel at the end of the board-planked
river trail, that turns
and opens the curtain of trees
with a flick of a wrist of wind,
the mist from the cathedral full of water
that empties over this lofty drop
again and again,
piercing the river below with a
thunderous thrust of power,
awe felt first in the rattling
of the sounds against my ribs,
pushing against me,
laboring my breath
with the weight of a truth
so profound I am crushed
beneath its weight,
then swept
up and carried,
borne to the throne room
of the Apocalypse
of Eden
to give account
of what I saw.
22 May 2009
Gruyere photos
Every dark passage a surprise of light
rising up from the green hill is a spire, is an alp
alps rarely make their point alone
a friend is framed in years of stones
and a lover loves his friends,
art swings from the push of wonder
while angels circle to the cry of their dance
we are captives only to our outlook
and the future frames a shock of autumn trees
snow runs into skies
even the stones shout the rays of sun
and glow with its yellow heat
emblems clothe the tall
and the tall roofs shoulder the walking few
a balcony is an uplifted hand in whose palm I stand a little
the smooth brush of imagination hangs on fuzzy fieldstone walls
and makes strange companions of things found in attics
each alp fills four views
and the wonder of the painters brush lifts the eye
each pilgrim takes in what's before them
and sings the radiance of an abounding soul
a table waits for the meeting the ancestor oversees
roof lines mime the dents of meters
the tallest is a head bowed to something further
children bloom in the heights of our dreams
and grow beyond our reach
the footprints of many rains are worn on a steady demeanor
artists echo the creation of let there be
and float in pastoral whimsy
as elders look on unmoved by fire in their belly
and courtyards ring the playful doors
a sleigh of blue is readied for the snows that come
who watches from these windows at who plays below?
The bell is silent. Finis.
21 Nov 2010
Riding
Riding into an impressive sunset
the western ear-lobes of the Alps
cast in a yellow-pink glow,
listening to the taps of a lingering sun,
Mont Blanc tres blanc
in the sights of a lingering sun;
and all this day-after winter beauty
is not as stunning
as it would be
if you were following
the point of my finger,
I the capture of your eyes,
and the gush of wondering wind
as we say together, "look!"
2 Dec 2010
Bamboo
At night
the tall thin bamboo
sway in the stifling breeze,
waving me back to my room
where the cool breath of AC
fogging the glass
perched on the bridge
of my nose,
taking me back
to a cold eve
on the other side
of the world,
just nights ago
when the bamboo
shivered stiffly
in the blowing snow;
and it is ever a wonder
how something as simple
as a gangly green stalk
takes me back
to somewhere else
that I had forgotten
or lost in the every-day,
that now stands out
and shakes me like
an outstretched hand.
4 Dec 2010
from Kaula Lumpur
On the Train to Genève
Vast tufts of fog
are lifting from the lake,
the morning sun
climbing over the Alps;
we hurtle through one
then another:
one town yawning in yellow,
the next squinting
in the mist;
reading this morning
a short bio of Doctorow,
I wonder how the story
will unfold,
the headlights of this
train lapping up the rails
to Genève,
and I,
facing the rear,
back to the wind
seeing what already
has gone by,
am full of hope.
7 Jan 2011
Green
Looking out at the tree tops
from the upper floor
of the white marble museum
in the thicket of the modern city,
she says,
“I miss the green.”
and I wonder in the midst
of this antiquity
if the exhibit of the garden
is in the darkest halls
of our being
ready to be called to life
in the spoken light.
4 Aug 19
Humming the Prepositions
“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, *
the holy habitation of the Most High.” —Ps. 46:5
In the City of God
are the echoes of the womb
whose waters that once bore us
and to which we return.
In the midst of a Michigan winter
we are flying
to a warmer clime
on the water flowing
from the Gulf
under bright sun
beside the shimmering palms
over the sands
Walking in open-toe shoes
humming all the prepositions
that are in me,
is it any wonder
that we call this a slice
of heaven
to which we are called home
7 Mar 2023
Ah, vacation restoreth the soul.
The Big House
Years ago a classmate
wrote a paper that the professor
singled out.
It was about the theology
of early church design,
where a large hole was left
in the roof, so that nothing
would impede the faithful
being caught up in the cloud
of the rapture.
I imagined those who gathered there,
looking up to blue sky in anticipation,
ready for the blast of trumpets
and the shout of angels.
As I walked down the ramp
and through the appointed stadium gate
to my seat, I did not know what
to expect, the roar of the crowd
drawing me in, the bright team colors
that the faithful wore stood out against
the green field. A sea of a hundred thousand
worshippers chanting a fight song
and gesturing the chop that our team
was to make of the enemy.
I was at once a grain of sand
insignificant in wave after wave
of significance,
the voices and the brass band rising up
in this open-air cathedral
that took away the air from my lungs
and with a single “oh”
I understood the ancient ones.
18 Feb 2024
The Big House is Michigan Wolverines stadium, the country's largest.
4. Saints
If I’ve learned anything from my years it is that God comes incarnate in the moments when we experience a moment of grace, and epiphany from meeting others. While these poems may be grieving, they stand at that edge of life we cannot see across, where we tremble. So we remember.
Mother Marie
Seated in a wheel chair
old woman with the trace
of golden hair,
fierce eyes --
carrying the fleece
of the Lamb
in her lap,
the finger of God
in her grip.
She held on to my sleeve
and wouldn't let go,
it kept me from
falling away
in my embarrassment
to flee from her
impulsive, holy way.
She had to bless me
before she died
whether I sought
the balm
or just to get
the awkward moment by.
Oh, She wouldn't save me
till I let her have
the upper hand.
16 Mar 1994
Agnes
Her world was not much larger
than a gingerbread house,
a kitchen bathed in the smell
of baking chocolate cake,
the bloom of buttercream flowers.
Within these four small walls
deep breathing was understandable.
Here the breads of Christmas,
birthday cupcakes, wedding cakes,
cream puffs and petite fours
were crafted by her gentle hands.
Here was the icing of special days,
days that mattered deeply to us all.
Though none of us were ever content
with gingerbread, here we returned
to lick the batter, savor the special
moments with candles, revelry and song.
In this small cradle we were each reborn
breathing deeply the dust of heaven.
17 Sep 1994
Richard
Like all good
story tellers
he told the stories
with a smile,
delighted at
the simple things
that are the vessels
for the deeper places
in the heart.
blessed by
the grace found
in the brighter moments
as the darker places
in our lives,
he would rather
laugh and smile
with the sinners
than wear the airs
of a lofty saint.
here was someone
with whom
you could
sit in a circle,
legs crossed
and head cocked,
with a child's
sense of wonder,
straining to hear
each word
as if life
at that moment
depended on the
nouns and verbs.
and in these stories
it did.
like St. Francis
before him,
he blessed the animals
and preached
as sincerely to
those with soft ears
as those with hard teeth
and claws,
remembering each
one's name
with an interest,
care
as if we were his own.
and so we were.
In this place
we are the flock
resting about
this simple hearth,
this simple table,
in a neighborhood
without roots,
the nomads of
the urban outland,
we are gathered by
this shepherd,
the gentle face
of the creed,
and our belief.
17 Sep 1995
John
I do not remember
seeing him without
the smile,
or hearing more than
a sentence or two
without the punctuation
of a chuckle—
as if the telling
of the most simple
things was a delight.
He was the equal
opportunity provider
of good humor,
in every place
and every time,
so that it was all
too easy
to make the mistake
of not taking him
seriously enough.
And yet the wisdom
was often buried
in the quick
remark.
So it ends up,
He was often
right.
It was a fretful
meeting of the Vestry
one December
when the budget gap
was large,
and Christmas seemed
as if it was delayed
another year.
To the question
of how we
would make ends meet,
he quipped,
with the abruptness
of a gasp,
“Well,
you just have
to have faith!”
—As if faith
wrote checks.
A few months later,
We were humbled
when our
assistant priest
was called to Stowe,
and the budget gap
fell silently
away.
Walking
down the path
with me
he hunches over,
as if bowing to life
larger than himself,
chuckling
at the stiffness
in his joints
with the humor
that reminds us
that humility
is bowing
before majesties
larger than we—
of the joy of life,
the love
of a giving heart,
the faith
in a caring God.
It ends up
you were right
dear John,
its ends up
you were
right.
15 Apr 1997
For John Cooper, a patriarch, and Warden emeritus at St. Francis Church.
Joe
He tells us of the operation
that reattached a retina
from where it had unplugged
at the back of his eye;
there were tiny flashes
of light at the edges,
along the periphery
of what we think is straight sight.
two years of this narrowest of beacons
sirening without the pain
or directness of a sound;
and then all went gray,
the light dimming
as if the power slowly drained
from this sharpest of eyes.
he gained some of it back
from the skilled hand of the surgeon,
but now the architect
of straight lines
cannot tell if the finish of the molding
lines up flush with its mitered turns;
precision slips from his grasp
and the creative mind
tells its lucid stories.
1 Jan 2013
Alice
The nod of the head
as the cross goes by
this recessing with honor
I learned from her
watching on a Sunday morning
in an old white church
sun streaming in the tall side windows
slicing up the room
into photographs of memories;
there were no words said
no caption
just a subtle bow
that spoke more benediction
than the blessing.
Not that she was one of few words
when she was riled by some injustice
and there were many
she’d mutter
to herself,
and if you heard between the lines
and said so
she’d say an emphatic “right!”
It was an early foyer dinner
at someone else’s house
that another new parishioner
leaned over in my direction
in the kitchen holding a glass of wine
“isn’t she wonderful?”
I nodded
as she passed
holding some dish
that needed bringing to the table
in the next room.
And she wasn’t referring to the hosting
but rather all the moments of accepting us
in our frailties
and there were many
grace comes in small gestures
a touch on the back of a hand
a prayer at the window
with the birds flurrying around
a feeder just filled
as we were.
You adopted us as your children
and we adopted you as our Great Aunt,
if ever the word great was understated
it is now Dear Alice
when we each bow with a nod
as you pass by
with a cross in your hand
smiling about some secret
we have still to live out.
30 Sep 2018
Originally titled “Passing,” I wrote this for Alice Smith, our adopted Aunt and fellow Warden at St. Francis Church, and read it at her memorial service.
Ann
I remember
sitting at our table
in La Taverna
for our weekly lunch
and conversation,
there was laughter
and a glass of wine.
You would punctuate
a rejoinder with
“oh Ed”
and a wave of your hand
that landed.
If there was an issue,
you would get determined
and say,
“Well, we’ll see about that!”
When I asked you what
I could do
after Lou had passed,
you told me you missed the
conversation,
so here we were
talking about business
families, loves and church
(and without an order).
We each moved to our cities
and the conversations
and menu
became a distant memory.
I had just sent you
a birthday card
with a lake scene
like the one you told me about
at the summer cottage
where you stayed
with the loons crying
in the distance.
Now it is we who cry
dear Ann
and your life
calls to us
with a generosity of spirit
that I will forever
remember
and miss.
26 Jan 2024
For Ann Moore. See the “Loons Call”, Aug. 2006, above.
5. Passion
There are moments of passion where the divine breaks in. The mystics understood this. We can also, if we but pay attention.
Passion
it is the candle
to which we're drawn
as the fated nightbug.
the source,
the well
of light,
heat,
flicker on the bedroom wall.
the wax
forms hot little mittens
on your fingertips
when you stroke
the pool beneath the flame;
it numbs the soul
and the story line.
so quickly blown to memory,
yet still to wet
a finger,
and squeeze
the smoking ember,
and hear it sizzle
before it slips away.
31 Jul 1993
Movie, "Damage"
Passion: ending ii
reality returns
as the children all
run to scavenge
in the matchbox drawer,
and light it up again
before dessert is served.
31 Jul 1993, For the movie, "Damage"
As an additional stanza. I prefer the shorter version (As Von Rohe taught us, less is more)
The Edge
there are those
times of passion
when you give
up yourself to
the moment
completely,
when you know
the edge is coming
like the drawn
out delay of
a sneeze --
you are losing
yourself,
disappearing --
wanting and not
for the end,
quickly you fall
head long over
the top
when it all rushes out
as the warm water
flows from the basin
when you've finished
washing your face,
it swirls from
your head through
your open hands,
splashing, circling
the abyss,
with a gasp
it snaps
like a shade
from a window
rolling up again
and again.
13 Sep 1993
Communion
The vestry
gathered about
the meeting table
like disciples at
the last supper,
where the food
and drink were
not the kind
that satisfied
the hunger,
but the
gristly issues
of gays,
aids,
and pulpits.
we chewed
and grimaced
on its taste,
unable to consume
the spread laid out
in its enormity,
we choked on its extremities.
for this meal
was not
the passioned beliefs
of distant matters.
this one lived
at home,
where we worshiped,
where we gathered,
where we ate,
as one;
where he served himself
to each,
and touched us
in our righteousness.
5 Dec 1993
Sparks
I have seen the
face of God
in the
burning passion
of red hearts
smoking with life
as the bush
on the mountain top,
the very brush
the cradle of grace.
When we cry
out in ecstasy
to God in heaven
and die in naked truth
is when I feel
most alive,
real.
With the grace
of an artist’s
finger,
His hand reaches
cross the barrel
ceiling
and touches our oneness
in the dark.
15 May 1994
Golden
It is
the moment
when her eyes
go golden—
light dancing
on the horizon
of each lash,
an arc of
lavender below
this iris
sun—
and I feel
her smile
as a flash
of joy.
That I
am here,
upon my
hands,
rising up
to see this
dash of dawn’s
delight,
is but
a gasp
of awe,
as words
leave—
a snap
of a whip
of wind
in the
windows—
such joy,
when I
can only
mouth
her name.
20 Jul 1997
__________________________________________________________________
6. Art
The first time I saw Michelangelo’s “David”, like the visitors to the Academia, I was speechless, gawking at the statue as we walked slowly around it as if in a trance. Whether sculpture, paintings or photographs, art often gives us pause.
Trompe l'oeil
The artist --
we didn't see
the name--
painted snapshots
to fool the eye;
a leaf on the siding,
under the glass
of the frame,
in the lens
of the camera
and the eye,
this maple awn
with fingertips green
palm yellow
wrist orange
whose summer ran out
to fall as drops
of quivering sap.
the white clapboard
mounting --
the coming snow and ice.
nothing moved,
the whole at once.
painting of
the photograph
of the maple leaf
somewhere in
New England
on an unknown
October day.
10 Jan 1996
David Brega print
Figure 2010 - David Brega [13]
[13] David Brega, Gallery Archives, https://www.davidbrega.com/archives
Peace
“I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.” --Wallace Stevens [14]
Is it the peace
that comes at morning,
before the town awakes,
or the one that follows sunset,
after the last cardinal
sounds its call?
Could be the quiet
before falling off
to dreamful sleep—
or the slow stretch
after a Sunday nap
when the house is yours alone?
Is it the calm
in the summer air
before the pounding squall
or the purple
smell of ozone
after the thunder’s gone?
Perhaps the lovers’ pause
across the candle light
knowing they will now retire,
or the soft sigh
that follows ragged breathing
and the sparking coals of passion?
No, It’s the soft gurgle
of a newborn
before the cry—
or the tiny gulp and gasp
after grabbing the warm breast
with his hungry lips.
Then it’s the serene
contentment of two friends
sipping tea at three--
or the silence
that follows the forgiven
angry word?
Maybe the pause
before the trumpet
sounds the Armageddon note
or the stillness
as the dust of battles
floats to earth at last?
Is it the peace
of a child’s sleeping
innocence,
or the embrace
of an old man
who has breathed his last?
No, it’s the peace
of Eden before
the fratricide;
no, the stillness
of Easter morning,
before the tongues are flamed.
10 Oct 1996
William Stafford wrote in his little book “Getting the Knack”, among other methods for getting started, to write a poem in response to another poet’s work.[15] I chose Wallace Stevens, a fellow CT artist as my muse.
[14] Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” from “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens,” Alfred A. Knopf, 1954, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45236/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird
[15] Stephen Dunning and William Stafford, “Getting the Knack: 20 Poetry Writing Exercises,” NCTE, Jan 1, 1992, https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Knack-Poetry-Writing-Exercises/dp/0814118488/
Rising Moon
She comes to the ocean
dressed in wistful white,
as the sky turns to indigo
and runs into the sea.
A summer hat dangles
from her hands,
an act of homage
or of opening—
and all is still
save the soft breeze
across her hair.
She is looking
for the quiet places of refuge,
solace,
longing—
found in the rising moon
that carries dreams
upon its splash of light.
You may hear her deeper breath
gather in the sea,
the sigh that makes even moons flicker
in low evening skies,
but you never know the eyes that stare
into the coming night,
unless you learn to be
the rising moon.
29 Nov 1996
While viewing David Schock’s painting “Rising Moon,” Edgartown Art Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard.
Figure 2011 - David Shock, "Looking to Sea"
–similar to his “Rising Moon” [16]
Figure 2012 - David Shock’s “Looking Out” – similar to Rising Moon [17]
[16] David Shock, Gallery of Figures, https://davidschock.com/figures-1[17] David Shock paintings, https://store.jtodd.com/collections/david-schock
Two Deer
Two deer
cross a field
in the stillness
of winter--
do they run
toward the embrace
of the wood,
away from
the hunter,
or simply free?
At this end-time
we rush to
tomorrow,
away from
yesterday,
and pause
on this day--
to listen
for the timeless.
30 Nov 1999
Figure 2013- Two Deer in a Snow-Covered Farm Field [18]
[18] Christmas card 1999. The text was included in Steven Sametz’s choral work, “Peace on Earth,” 1999, https://stevensametz.com/composer/works/info/peace-on-earth/ with the sheet music here: https://notenova.com/product/peace-on-earth/
Boy at the end of a string
There is a boy
at the end of a string
and somewhere
beyond the edge
of this glossy paper
is a kite
tugging against
a celestial blue sky—
but all we see
is a look of bliss
and wonder
as if looking
at angels
dancing on
the point of some cloud
as if looking
at the smile
on a divine face.
6 Jun 2002
[19] From “15-Happy Boy Flying Kite On Sunny Day Slow Motion Video,” Pond 5, Item ID: 64083685
https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/64083685-15-happy-boy-flying-kite-sunny-day-slowmotion
A face on the wind
We stand by
the side of the road
watching in awe—
the mobile sculptures
turning and twisting
with the breeze—
small metallic shutters
snapping photographs
of light and clouds
on a surface
that moves left
then right,
up then down—
holding a long pause
in the air
as we hold our breaths
then exhale,
rushing where it will.
Standing here
on a Sunday
a man and a woman
hold hands—
so much is unknown
under God's heaven,
even a face
on the wind.
7 Jun 2004
“Tim Prentice, one of the most imaginative and poetic sculptors practicing today …floating lines in space—that he suspended in the woods. Balancing them so that ‘the wind endlessly (can) draw and redraw the lines in a continuous flow of patterns without ever repeating itself,’ he created an effect of mystery and wonder.” [20]
Tim Prentice, Kinetic Sculpture
To see Tim’s work is to first marvel at the design and function of his mobile art, and then stand in awe as a piece disappears with the changing breeze.[21]
[20] Christine Temin, The Boston Globe, July 28, 1994, https://timprentice.com/reviews/
[21] For example, see his “wind frame”, on his farm on Lake Road in West Cornwall, CT: https://timprentice.com/wind-frame/
At the 60th Annual Meeting of the Parish
He bids us listen
for a few minutes.
It is Sunday
and the church is full.
We wait
with expectation
for him to speak.
Silence.
Nothing.
Then
From a hidden stereo
music begins—
a single note
a few voices
angelic
then more
folding over
a delicate air
with a glimmer of light
over a ground
of sinewy strength—
it is as if
we are eavesdropping
on Creation itself—
Adam
rising up from the dust
in naked glory—
Ave, verum corpus— [22]
hail true body!
The priest’s words follow,
analogies are assigned—
in this community of doing
there is also being
that simply is.
Here we are gathered,
in awe of the maestro's beauty,
with Thomas we say:
my Lord! [23]
29 Jan 2006
[22] Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus (Hail True Body,) on the 250 anniversary of his birthday, St. Francis' Church, at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Parish.
[23] John 20:28 "Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God!'"
On the Ruelle
The twins have left traces
in the driveway
this evening:
three chalk cars
and a blue line--
two sedans above
and one below,
as if "above"
meant something
in the flat-lands;
I notice the quiet
and the remnants
as if heaven
dusted the earth
with a flick of the wrist
so those who pass by
and look back
are left wondering.
13 Apr 2012
The twins who lived on our tiny lane in Nyon, Switzerland were frequent artists with chalk on the macadam. Walking home from the train often meant walking through their art gallery.
Two Chairs
We may look at these two chairs
that face us as empty,
sitting outside this rugged house
with the closed blue shutter
and stucco falling from the field stone,
but I see all the conversations
that have not yet happened,
the laughter that has not yet
rung out across this path,
the glance that comes
before the kiss;
what has been behind this window
tied shut with a bit of straw
has been,
and what is yet to come
cannot be kept within these walls;
come sit with me
and start a story
as if it were tomorrow,
and I will dream with you.
18 Dec 2013
For Shirley for Christmas
Emblematic of the many “chairs” we share at the table, this poem found its way into our wedding play, March 14, 2015, at St. Francis Church.