Saturday, January 25, 2014

13 YEARS OF AGE

Poem for Today - January 25, 2014



PORTRAIT  OF A GIRL
WITH COMIC BOOK

Thirteen’s no age at all. Thirteen is nothing.
It is not wit, or powder on the face,
Or Wednesday matinees, or misses’ clothing,
Or intellect, or grace.
Twelve has its tribal customs. But thirteen
is neither boys in battered cars nor dolls,
Not Sara Crewe or movie magazine
Or pennants on the walls.

Thirteen keeps diaries and tropical fish
(A month, at most); scorns jumpropes in the spring;
Could not, would fortune grant it, name its wish;
Wants nothing, everything;
Has secrets from itself, friends it despises;
Admits none of the terrors that it feels;
Owns a half a hundred masks but no disguises;
And walks upon its heels.

Thirteen’s anomalous - not that, not this:
Not folded bud, or wave that laps a shore,
Or moth proverbiaI from the chrysaIis.
Is the one age defeats the metaphor.
Is not a town, like childhood, strongly walled
But easiIy surrounded; is no city.
Nor, quitted once, can it be quite recalled -
Not even with pity.

 © Phyllis McGinley
                                                                                                          “Portrait of a Girl With Comic Book” 
by Phyllis McGinley: from Times Three 
by Phyllis McGinley. 
Copyright 1952 by Phyllis McGinley.


Friday, January 24, 2014


ON FOOT

On foot beats driving every time ….
Those in cars might miss the sight
of tree roots and what they can do
to sidewalks - causing cracks and
pushing up bricks and cement ….
Walking on foot - one sees the poetry
of frozen footprints in snow and ice
as well as of dead leaves  lingering
in corners and under wooden porches
and dead cigarettes outside churches.
Walking strengthens legs and lungs -
and gives one a feel for variations
of wind - breeze - gusts - gales -
as well as chance meetings with
neighbors - the mail carrier and 
a baby smiling at us - as a mom
in sporty gear glides by us with a baby
carriage in front of her - and sometimes
we spot a perfectly good ballpoint pen
someone dropped on the sidewalk
and we end up using it for a year
and a half - - or we spot both halves
of a photograph of a couple -
ripped in two lying next
to a tough plastic garbage can.
What happened? Did roots
or the push of underneath stuff
erupt and disrupt their dream
of a picture perfect future?
On foot beats driving every time ….
Sidewalk stories  - a novel in
progress - the stuff we can read
as we walk on foot on snow, on ice,
as well as on the boxed cement or
red or yellow brick roads of life.



© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2014
15 YEARS OF AGE? 
WHAT'S IT LIKE?

Poem for Today - January 24, 2014




FIFTEEN

South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, ticking over
slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen.

I admired all that pulsing gleam, the
shiny flanks, the demure headlights
fringed where it lay; I led it gently
to the road and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen.

We could find the end of a road, meet
the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about
hills, and patting the handle got back a
confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen.

Thinking, back farther in the grass I found
the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped
over the raiI. He had bIood on his hand, was paIe --
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared away.

I stood there, fifteen.

- William Stafford  ©


“Fifteen” by William Stafford: 
from The Rescued Year 
by William Stafford. 
Copyright 1964 
by William E. Stafford. 

Thursday, January 23, 2014

WATCHING ONE 
ANOTHER WATCHING

Poem for Today - January 23, 2014



CORNER


The cop slumps alertly on his motorcycle,
supported by one leg like a leather stork.
His glance accuses me of loitering.
I can see his eyes moving like a fish
in the green depth of his green goggles.

His ease is fake. I can tell.
My ease is fake. And he can tell.
The fingers armored by his gloves
splay and clench, itching to change something.
As if he were my enemy or my death,
I just standing there watching.

I spit out my gum which has gone stale.
I knock out a new cigarette
which is my bravery.
It is all imperceptible:
the way I shift my weight,
the way he creaks in his saddle.

The traffic is specific though constant.
The sun surrounds me, divides the street between us.
His crash helmet is whiter in the shade.
It is like a bull ring as they say it is just before the fighting.
I cannot back down. I am there.

Everything holds me back.
I am in danger of disappearing into the summer dust.
My Levis bake and my t-shirt sweats.

My cigarette makes my eyes burn
but I don’t dare drop it.

Who made him my enemy?
Prince of coolness. King of fear.
Why do I lean here waiting?
Why does he lounge there waiting?

I am becoming sunlight
My hair is on fire. My boots run like tar.
I am hung-up by the bright air.

Something breaks through all of a sudden,
and he blasts off, quick as a craver,*
smug in his power; watching me watch.


© Ralph Pomeroy
*[Craver = an intense,
quick desire]

Wednesday, January 22, 2014




TO LIFE 

“L’Chaim!” 
A morning prayer ….
A toast to our God
at the beginning of each day,
for what is to appear
on the table of life
called, “Today!”

“L’Chaim!”
A night prayer ….
A toast to our God
at the end of each day,
for what we tasted
on the table of life,
called, “Today!”

And then 
tomorrow,
there will be
another today.
Thank You, God,
for today.

"L'Chaim!"


© Andy Costello, Prayers, 2014
JUST DO IT



Poem for Today - January 22, 2014

CLAMMING

I go digging for clams every two or three years
Just to keep my hand in (I usually cut it),
And whenever I do so I tell the same story: how,
At the age of four,
I was trapped by the tide as I clammed a vanishing sandbar.
It's really no story at all, but I keep telling it
(Seldom adding the end, the commonplace rescue).
It serves my small lust to be thought of as someone who's lived.

I've a war, too, to fall back on, and some years of flying,
As well as a staggering quota of drunken parties,
A wife and children; but somehow the clamming thing
Gives me an image of me that soothes my psyche
As none of the louder events — me helpless,
Alone with my sand pail,
As fate in the form of soupy Long Island Sound
Comes stalking me.

My youngest son is that age now.
He's spoiled. He's been sickly.
He's handsome and bright, affectionate and demanding.
I think of the tides when I look at him.
I'd have him alone and seagirt, poor little boy.

The self, what a brute it is. It wants, wants.
It will not let go of its even most fictional grandeur,
But must grope, grope down in the muck of its past
For some little squirting life and bring it up tenderly
To the lo and behold of death, that it may weep
And pass on the weeping, keep it all going.

Son, when you clam,
Watch out for the tides, take care of yourself,
Yet no great care,
Lest you care too much and talk too much of the caring
And bore your best friends and inhibit your children and sicken
At last into opera on somebody's sandbar.
When you clam, Son,
Clam.



© Reed Whittemore

Tuesday, January 21, 2014


HEROES

INTRODUCTION

The title and topic of my comments for this 2nd Tuesday  in  Ordinary Time is, “Heroes.”

Last night, when I read the readings for today, that’s the theme and the question that hit me. Ideas and wonderings about heroes popped up. I might have, but I don’t remember speaking on this topic before.

I noticed that David is mentioned in both readings as well as today’s Psalm. [Cf. 1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 89: 20, 21-22, 27-28; Mark 2: 23-28.]  And David was certainly a hero in Israel and down through the centuries in various cultures.  If you’ve been to Florence, Italy, you’ve seen for sure, the famous statue of David - which brings out cameras and tourist dollars to this day.

HEROES

Heroes are the men and women we put on pedestals and carve into statues. They appear on posters on our walls. We look up to them for inspiration and motivation - courage and stick-to-it-tiveness.

Heroes: they name sandwiches after them - as in Chick and Ruth’s here in Annapolis.

In the Jewish scriptures we have Abraham, Moses and David.

In time - like so many heroes - they become larger than life.

I remember attending a great talk in New York City by a little known rabbi about the power of the pen - how David’s story keeps on getting better and better with the centuries. It made me want to always read at least 2 biographies of someone I wanted to know more about.

QUESTIONS

Last night, as I was working on this 2 page sermon on “Heroes”, I asked myself, “What are the questions that ought to be asked about heroes?”

I jotted down: “Who are my heroes?” and then the correlative question: “What does the ones I pick  say about me?”

“Have I ever been betrayed by a hero?”  In other words, “Do I have any fallen heroes?”

Like the Wizard of Oz, who’s behind the curtain?  We’ve all heard the quote, “To a valet no man is a hero.” Goethe and a half dozen others have made that remark. How about to one’s spouse and kids? What’s the president or the pope really like? Talk to his brother or sister - or wait for the biographies. Whom can we trust?

At every funeral I ask: who is this person who has just died - and that’s what I try to figure out in the funeral parlor. Of course I don’t want to throw mud - just to find out the good stuff about someone.

A question: is having a hero or heroine - starting with one’s mom and dad -  part of every person’s growing up?

A question: in our life time we’ve seen mobs or crowds - tear down statues - do we tend to do the same silently as we grow older?



In Bertolt Brecht,’s 1938 play, Life of Galileo, Scene 12, page 115, Andrea says: “Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.” Galileo responds: “No, Andrea: Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

I assume we need heroes - because it seems so much a part of everyone’s life.

CONCLUSION

My goal is two pages - so I suggest we all continue to do our homework on the question of heroes.

When it comes to oneself, we better have a sense of humor, honesty and humility - humor first.

When it comes to others as heroes, we also better be able to laugh.

A closing story….  Remember Willie Nelson’s song, “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.”  Well, one night I was watching TV with a priest named John Barry. He was a very proper guy. Willie Nelson comes on the TV screen, scruffy beard, ear rings, pony tail and bandana. John says, “Who’s that?” as in “What’s that?” And I said, “That’s Willie Nelson.” And he says, “Oh no, he’s my favorite singer.”