dual personalities

Tag: poetry

February 21, 2023

My worried windowpanes

by chuckofish

Don sent this terrific poem, The Man Watching, by Rainer Maria Rilke:

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after

so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes

that a storm is coming,

and I hear the far-off fields saying things

I can’t bear without a friend,

I can’t love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on

across the woods and across time,

and the world looks as if it had no age:

the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,

is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights with us is so great!

If only we would let ourselves be dominated

as things do by some immense storm,

we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it’s with small things,

and the triumph itself makes us small.

What is extraordinary and eternal

does not want to be bent by us.

I mean the Angel who appeared

to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:

when the wrestlers’ sinews

grew long like metal strings,

he felt them under his fingers

like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel

(who often simply declined the fight)

went away proud and strengthened

and great from that harsh hand,

that kneaded him as if to change his shape.

Winning does not tempt that man.

This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,

by constantly greater beings.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

I thought this was inspiring and true. “That’s the blessing of God. Just like we hear every Christmas: Immanuel–God with us. No matter the suffering we go through, God’s presence is better than anything our hearts desire. Though my body may fail, my faith and life is fireproof: though there are rumors of war, pestilence, and ruin, and our little sheep eyes can’t hazard what’s ahead, we can trust in the voice of our Shepherd, who is ever near.”

Enjoy your day. Read a poem. Know that God is with you. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

The painting is “Before the Storm” by Isaac Levitan (1860- 1900).

3 Comments
February 16, 2023

The sun breaks through

by chuckofish

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

“A Bright Field” by R. S. Thomas (1913–2000) 

The painting is by Jacob Van Ruisdael – “View of Haarlem from the North West with the Bleaching Fields in the Foreground” c.1670-1675.

P.S. This is a wonderful response to the Michigan State University shooting by Kevin DeYoung. “As long as there is sin and suffering in the world the gospel will be relevant. Is there more hostility to authentic biblical Christianity than a few decades ago? Probably. But people are still people. They don’t want to be scared, and they don’t want to die. They need forgiveness, they need comfort, they need hope. They need Jesus.”

And Brett McCracken makes a good point here: “In a twist Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel likely never saw coming, the avant-garde has, in the 21st century, become middlebrow ennui. Subversion has scaled up like Starbucks, going stale in the process. This means “normal” starts to feel unexpectedly radical…In an age where amoral excess is the bland standard, disciplined restraint is the flavorful exception.”

Have a good day. Read some poetry. Think for yourself.

2 Comments
February 8, 2023

Like the new moon thy life appears

by chuckofish

–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The painting is by Jessie Wilcox Smith.

BTW, an adumbration is an “imperfect representation; something that suggests by resemblance, or shadows forth; a foreshadowing.” I looked it up.

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
    but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

–Proverbs 19:21
2 Comments
February 6, 2023

Let me not sink to be a clod

by chuckofish

Well, the weekend started out chilly and chill, the highlight being daughter #1’s sighting of a very large hawk on the back fence.

Later the same day we spotted a bald eagle flying over our neighborhood! We were not fast enough to snap a picture, but it was exciting. Mais vraiment, two large raptors in one day! According to our local news rag, it is the season for Turkey Buzzards to return from their southern migration, so we’ll be on the lookout for them, although, let’s be honest, it is not very exciting to see vultures.

Another highlight was going to The Cracker Barrel for dinner! We had not been there in many, many years, but after hearing that they now serve alcohol, we headed over to Fenton around 4:45 pm so we could get a table without having to wait on the front porch. We were pleasantly surprised with our meals (mine was from the kid’s menu) and the addition of a cold Blue Moon only enhanced the experience.

“Yeah, that’s a big bite. I’m a big boy.” (The hashbrown casserole is delish.)

At church on Sunday, the wee laddie filled out the welcome card as usual…

…before heading down to Sunday School. The service still fills me with joy and sets me on my course for the week. Amen.

We went home afterwards and ate bagels and then went outside to frolic…(Lottie was sick at home with her Mom, but Mr. Smith got quite a workout with just the wee laddie, chasing the car and playing soccer.)

It was even warm enough to do some driveway sittin’! It was so great to see the sun and that blue sky!

Meanwhile, the two sisters continue to bond adorably…

Have a good week! “By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” (1 Peter 2: 24-25)

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified;
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod;
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.

–Amy Carmichael

4 Comments
January 27, 2023

Behold, I am coming soon*

by chuckofish

One more weekend in January and then we are on to February–the year is off to a fast start.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of William Butler Yeats in 1939. We will toast him and read some poetry. Hard to believe “The Second Coming” was written over 100 years ago. It certainly resonates.

(The painting is by Fairfield Porter.)

*Revelation 22:12

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January 16, 2023

“Like newborn infants, long for the spiritual milk”*

by chuckofish

Well, I made it to Baltimore without any delays (thanks for all those prayers and well wishes) and wonderful DN was waiting to pick me up at the airport and drive me to Silver Spring. Since then I have been enjoying lots of quality time with precious daughter #2 and sweet Katiebelle.

We are waiting patiently for baby #2 to arrive.

In the meantime, here’s a poem, a sonnet by Christina Rossetti (1830-94), “Sonnets Are Full of Love”:

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honoured name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.

*1 Peter 2:3

2 Comments
January 13, 2023

A Fiat with the top down

by chuckofish

–“Amaryllis” by Connie Wanek

Also this (picturing Ronnie Howard):

This is how my brain (still) works.

Have a good weekend! Pray for traveling mercies for me as I head to Baltimore tomorrow morning.

5 Comments
January 6, 2023

So many things

by chuckofish

Many things I might have said today.
And I kept my mouth shut.
So many times I was asked
To come and say the same things
Everybody was saying, no end
To the yes-yes, yes-yes,
me-too, me-too.

The aprons of silence covered me.
A wire and hatch held my tongue.
I spit nails into an abyss and listened.
I shut off the gable of Jones, Johnson, Smith,
All whose names take pages in the city directory.

I fixed up a padded cell and lugged it around.
I locked myself in and nobody knew it.
Only the keeper and the kept in the hoosegow
Knew it–on the streets, in the post office,
On the cars, into the railroad station
Where the caller was calling, “All a-board,
All a-board for . . . Blaa-blaa . . . Blaa-blaa,
Blaa-blaa . . . and all points northwest . . .all a-board.”
Here I took along my own hoosegow
And did business with my own thoughts.
Do you see? It must be the aprons of silence.

–Carl Sandburg

Today is Carl Sandburg’s birthday. He lived from 1878 to 1967 and during his lifetime he was held in high regard, winning three Pulitzer Prizes for poetry and biography. When he died President Lyndon Johnson said, “Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America.” Seems like a bit of an overstatement.

Sandburg understood some things though. He said: “When a nation goes down or a society perishes, one condition may always be found–They forgot where they came from.”

I liked this remembrance of Sandburg by the son of the artist William A. Smith who painted his portrait which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

7 Comments
January 4, 2023

“A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off”*

by chuckofish

In response to my statement that I had read the entire Bible in 2022, a college friend commented on her Christmas card to me: “Katie! You read the Bible! What’s next? All of Shakespeare?”

Well, that’s an idea.

No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

–Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2

*Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The painting is “The Plays of William Shakespeare” by Sir John Gilbert, 1849

3 Comments
December 20, 2022

“For we in the East have seen his star, And have ridden fast, and have ridden far”*

by chuckofish

It makes me happy every year to open up our big box of Christmas ornaments that I have collected over the years and see them on a new tree.

Some were made by my aunts many years ago or by people I have worked with and some were made more recently by my daughters.

Some have been handed down from my parents and even my grandparents. Some were “store-bought” and quite a few were made by my children at school. (Do they make Christmas ornaments in elementary school any more?)

Some are part of a collection (bears).

Well, it’s nice to remember.

It’s also nice that TCM remembers all those performers/writers/directors/etc who die every year. Here is their 2022 in memoriam tribute:

They always include the little known actors who may have had just one scene in a great movie, like Mickey Kuhn who played the young Montgomery Clift in Red River (1948) and Virginia Patton who played Jimmy Stewart’s new sister-in-law in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). I must say I think James Caan deserved more than the split second inclusion he got. C’est la vie. But I like that the last snippet of Sidney Poitier is of him playing a cowboy. He played several cowboys in his career and I think he enjoyed it.

Here’s an interesting article about the Magi and why they worshiped Jesus.

I liked this article about dealing with sleeplessness. “A good night’s sleep, like so many of God’s gifts, is one of those ordinary glories you don’t quite appreciate until it’s gone.”

Do you need to be reminded of “10 Ways to Be a Christian this Christmas”? These are 10 good ones.

Enjoy the week before Christmas! Slow down. Watch a Christmas movie. Read a poem.

*”The Three Kings” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow–read it here.

6 Comments