REMEMBERING  HIS  MOTHER

Poem for Today - May 11, 2014

IV

“You see,” my mother said, and laughed,

knowing I knew the passage

she was remembering, “finally you lose

everything.” She had lost

parents, husband, and friends, youth,

health, most comforts, many hopes.

Deaf, asleep in her chair, awakened

by a hand's touch, she would look up

and smile in welcome as quiet

as if she had seen us coming.

She watched, curious and affectionate,

the sparrows, titmice, and chickadees

she fed at her kitchen window—

where did they come from, where

did they go? No matter.

They came and went as freely as

in the time of her old age

her children came and went,

uncaptured, but fed.

And I, walking in the first spring

of her absence, know again

her inextinguishable delight:

the wild bluebells, the yellow

celandine, violets purple

and white, twinleaf, bloodroot,

larkspur, the rue anemone

light, light under the big trees,

and overhead the redbud blooming

the redbird singing,

the oak leaves like flowers still

unfolding, and the blue sky.

© Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir, 

The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997,

Page 211-212 [1997] 

WAITING? 

AREN'T WE ALL? 

Poem for Today - May 10, 2014

THE DESERTED CAFÉ

I go there vaguely thinking of a meeting,

Meeting whom I am not sure.

I go there, my heart dry as a hollowed out shell.

Thirst and hunger hang thick in the night.

In the afternoon the sun beats down hard ….

In the afternoon it rains and rains ….

The café is empty. The lamp shadows wait

Through the long nights for someone’s return.

It’s my own fault.

I’ve forgotten the date of the meeting.

Pity for the one returning. Pity for the one who waits

And no one comes.

Life is filled with errors.

Regrets change nothing.

We must grin and bear it.
Make the best of the journey.

In the afternoon the sun beats down hard …

In the afternoon it rains and rains ….

The café is empty, the lamp shadows

Wait a thousand years.

© To Thuy Yen

Translated from

the Vietnamese

by Nguyen Ba Chung

and Kevin Bowen

THE CALL TO BE 

A PROPHET

Poem for Today -May 9, 2014

THE POET’S VOICE

I don’t want freedom gram by gram, grain by grain.
I have to break this steel chain with my teeth!

I don’t want freedom as a drug, as a medicine.
I want it as the sun, as the earth, as the heavens!

Step, step aside, you invader!

I am the loud voice of this land!

I don’t need a puny spring,

I am a thirsting ocean!

© Khalil Reza Uluturk

Translated from the Azeri by

Aynur H. Imecer

“Author’s Note: This poem

Has also been published with

The title, “The Voice of Africa.”

During the Soviet period, many

Azeri poets used other

Geographical locaions in their

Poems to disguise their feelings

About their own coutry and their

Own situation so that the Soviet

Censors would not suspect

The true meaning and ban their

works.”

STOPPING - REMEMBERING -

WHAT'S - BETTER - 

WHO'S IMPORTANT

Poem for Today - May 8, 2014

WHAT THE LIVING DO

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days,                  some utensil probably fell down there.

And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, 

             and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is                  the everyday we spoke of

It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue,                  and the sunlight pours through

The open living room windows because the heats on                 too high in here, and I can’t turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of                             groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And                     yesterday, hurrying along those

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my                 coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring

               to come and the winter to pass. 

We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss —                  we want more and more any then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a                          glimpse of myself in the window glass,

Say the window of the corner video store, and I’m                        gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and                                unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:

I am living, I remember you.

© Marie Howe (1950 - )

TIME AND THE DEAD

Poem for Today - May 7, 2014

GRASS

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work –

I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am grass.
Let me work.

© Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Painting on top: The Veteran

in a New Field (1865), by 

Winslow Homer (1836-1910)

This painting was finished a

few months after the end of

the Civil War with the  signing 

of the surrender at Appomattox.

BODY LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for today for this 3^rd Tuesday after Easter  is, “Body Language.”

I couldn’t help but notice in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles – how much body language is used. [Confer  Acts 7: 51 to 8:1]

The crowd who want  to kill Steven are described as stiff necked – as well as uncircumcised of heart  and ears – a neat  - but nasty - challenge to these men who were circumcised –  men who are grinding their teeth in anger.

The crowd who want to throw stones at Stephen are infuriated, screaming, crying out – and the noise gets so loud they cover their ears with their hands. They take off their cloaks and lay them in a  gesture of communion with a young man named Saul.

Stephen is stoned to death. Now that’s body language. He was heard praying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then falling to his knees he cries out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Luke in this story from Acts then says, “And with that he died.” And he ends, “Saul, for his part, concurred in the act of killing.”

It’s a powerful scene – filled with drama, filled with powerful body language as the body of a human being is killed.

We’ll find out as the story about the Early Church unfolds in the Acts of the Apostles that all this was not lost on Saul – who becomes Paul.

REALIZATIONS ABOUT BODY LANGUAGE

We communicate with each other each day – in many ways.

Sometimes we spot  yawns or someone looking at their watch or cellphone or  over our shoulder and not at our eyes and this tells us a lot more than a person saying, “Hey, I’m listening.”

Spouses sometimes realize something is missing in their marriage when the kiss or hug on the way out the door has slipped out the repertoire of their communication and communion with each other.

Last Saturday-  a guy at a wedding reception was mentioning to me – in those dozen or so conversations that happen with hors d’oeuvres in hand  – that looking back he regrets all those years he was working 75 hours a week – to the neglect of his kids. While telling me this - I noticed his regret the most in his body language:  the shrug of his shoulders, the tightening of his jaw, the biting of his lower lip with his upper teeth.

Body language?  It’s happening all the time. Picture a family eating supper with each other, but also picture 20 minutes earlier -  one person is chopping the celery - while another is getting out the pans – while another  is setting the table, while another  is cutting bread, and all say grace together holding hands.  The family that eats together stays together. The family that prays together is graced together. The family that stops going to supper  together is like a family that stops going to Mass – skipping both tables, both meals – missing both words and bodies together in the same space – missing out on real presence and real communion with each other.

CONCLUSION

Is it any wonder that Jesus gives us his body and blood – to be in communion with him and with each other? That’s what the words of today’s gospel tell me. [Confer  John 6: 30-35]  This meeting, this Mass together, right now is what  this is all about.

So our bodies being in this church – in these benches – in this sacred space together – are saying with body language – that we’re celebrating a simple pickup meal on a weekday morning – with each other – saying also  prayers and words - taking food – making signs of  peace together – and sensing each other’s presence  coming down the aisle to receive the bread of life – Christ who nourishes us so we can give life to our world.

And then we walk back down the aisle – then we walk out into our world for a new day of life – knowing the truth of Jesus words to us today, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Being here in church over and over again tells me by people’s body language  we’re saying to each other, “This we know. This we believe - together. Amen.”

WORDS  BECOMING  FLESH 

AND  DWELLING AMONGST US

Poem for May 6, 2014

PERMANENTLY

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.

An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.

The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Each Sentence says one thing – for example, “Although it

was a dark rainy day when the Adjective walked by,

I shall remember the pure and sweet expression

on her face until the day I perish from the

green, effective earth.”

Or, “Will you please close the window, Andrew?”

Or, for example, “Thank you, the pink pot of flowers

       on the window sill has changed color recently 

       to a light yellow, due to the heat from the boiler                  factory which exists nearby.”

In the springtime the Sentences and the Nouns lay                      silently on the grass.

A lonely Conjunction here and there would call, “And! But!”

But the Adjective did not emerge.

As the adjective is lost in the sentence,

So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat –

You have enchanted me with a single kiss

Which can never be undone

Until the destruction of language.

© Kenneth Koch (1925-2002)