One Vision of the Blessed Day

A have a new sonnet for you today, something (I hope) to cheer spirits, feed hope, and comfort hearts, not to draw us away from our preoccupations in the present, but to make us more certain of the good end of all things, and thus more steadfast in what things we meet, and what things meet us now.

One Vision of the Blessed Day (pdf)

O for the blessed day, and O to see
man’s mangled mess before our widening eyes
once fine, then fit the shape of Christ, and rise,
hearts bled of pride, skin shed of enmity…

I had the final words (“and Christ above it all”) tumbling around in my head since last Sunday at church, and the sense that it should be the close of a list. I didn’t know, though, what it would ultimately be about until I started writing it.

The Temple

I recently started a project in which I intend to post all of the poems that make up George Herbert’s great work, The Temple – here.

I’ve made it through the 4th poem, called The Sacrifice. One of his great ones, I think, as we by reading it follow Christ through the events involved with His Passion, with the refrain hitting us again and again – Was ever grief like mine?

The text I am using should be close to the original, as printed over a hundred years ago.

Triolet Trebuchet VII

Having just completed the last of another set of seven triolet, I can now load up another blast…

Afraid (pdf)

Boundless Grace (pdf)

Fine the Day (pdf)

Strong in the Lord (pdf)

Tranquilly (pdf)

Sleet (pdf)

Rattle, rattle, on the windows, walls.
Ice is falling from the sky
slanted, as the falling angel falls.
Rattle, rattle, on the windows, walls –
down and down the lowest circle calls,
voiding banks and treasuries on high.
Rattle, rattle, on the windows, walls;
ice is falling from the sky.

A Late Winter Driveway (pdf)

Still playing around with line length and meter, or lack thereof. This set covers a fair stretch of writing time and perspectives, too.

Some More Love

From Sidney and Shakespeare.

Sidney: My True Love Hath My Heart

Shakespeare: My Glass Shall Not Persuade Me I Am Old

Just two of I am sure many, many poems, even many sonnets, to use the conceit of an exchange of hearts between lovers.

Love I Have Known

What a fine day for to break my little blogging hiatus with…a love sonnet! Pity I couldn’t sneak snow into it somehow.

Love I Have Known (pdf)

Love, as in them, in us shall call forth love,
desire for love lead out that love’s desire,
the loved becoming lovely…

I of course have in mind agape more than eros, with particular emphasis on Christ’s love for us and His example to walk in, and His loving grace or gracious love inspiring us to walk in that pattern – to return His love – which love, as the first lines struggle to put it, is (I think) more often or better grasped pictorially than understood rationally, and more often or better practiced in spite of said deficit. This, perhaps, need not always be the case, and rational expositions are welcome, and not to be avoided. But it nevertheless seems to be the case that visions can skip right past the words meant to clarify them and inspire better than such expositions ever could – and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this.