CHILD
art
prophet of the Highest
go with JESUS
paving His ways
Folded hands signify being bound; even more, it seems to me: between folded hands there's no more room for anything else -- even for something that is just coming into being. But when the hands separate again after prayer, perhaps LORD, you can entrust them with something as a proof that everything comes from You.
The more Love one gives away the richer one becomes. Wealth finally becomes limitless, in fact, only when it has become naked poverty.
O my Lord,
the stars glitter
and the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have locked their doors
and each lover is alone with his love.
Here, I am alone with You.
"Women in Praise of The Sacred", edited by Jane Hirshfield, 1995
"I See His Blood Upon The Rose"
I see His blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of His eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see His face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but His voice -- and carven by His power,
Rocks are His written words.
All pathways by His feet are worn,
His strong Heart stirs the ever - beating sea.
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His Cross is every tree.
"The Golden Book of Catholic Poetry" edited by Alfred Noyes - J.B. Lippincott Company, New York, NY 1946
I do not fear to lay my body down
In death, to share
The life of the dark earth, and lose my own,
If God is there.
I have so loved all sense of Him, sweet might
Of colour and of sound, --
His tangible loveliness and living light
That robes me 'round.
If to His heart in the hushed grave and dim
We sink more near,
It shall be well -- living we rest in Him.
Only I fear
Lest from my God in lonely death I lapse,
And the dumb clod,
Lose Him; for God is life, and death perhaps
Exile from God.
The Golden Book of Catholic Poetry, edited by Alfred Noyes, 1946
"Cuando Dios Lo Quiera"
Santa florecita, celestial renuevo,
que hiciste de mi alma una primavera,
y cuyo perfume para siempre llevo:
Cuando en mi camino te hallaré de nuevo?
-- Cuando Dios lo quiera, cuando Dios lo quiera!
. . .
Poema del Libro "La Amada Inmóvil", 1947
1
There is a gold light in certain old paintings
That represents a diffusion of sunlight.
It is like happiness, when we are happy.
It comes from everywhere and from nowhere at once, this light,
And the poor soldiers sprawled at the foot of the Cross
Share in this charity equally with the cross.
2
Orpheus hesitated beside the black river
With so much to look forward to he looked back.
We think he sang then, but the song is lost.
At least he had seen once more the beloved back.
I say the song went this way: O prolongNow the sorrow if that is all there is to prolong.
3
The world is very dusty, uncle. Let us work.
One day the sickness shall pass from the earth for good.
The orchard will bloom; someone will play the guitar.
Our work will be seen as strong and clean and good.
And all that we suffered through having existed
Shall be forgotten as though it had never existed.
How fashionably sad my early poems are!
On their clipped lawns and hedges the snows fall;
Rains beat against the tarpaulins of their porches,
Where, Sunday mornings, the bored children sprawl,
Reading the comics, before the parents rise.
-- The rhymes, the meters, how they paralyze!
Who walks out through their streets tonight? No one.
You know these small towns, how all traffic stops
At ten; the corner streetlamps gathering moths;
And the pale mannequins waiting in dark shops,
Undressed, and ready for the dreams of men.
-- Now the long silence. Now the beginning again.
Donald Justice "Collected Poems" -- Albert A. Knopf. Inc ©2004
The LORD says
Arise,
Plead your case before the mountains,
Let the hills hear your voice.
Hear the rod!
Blessed is he
who after death
can approach
The LORD
and find friendship
in the Father's embrace.
Lines 187-188
Surely into the warp and woof of our North Dakota fabric, we can, if we will, weave a small red strand, not indeed bulkingly large, but enough to give a piquancy to the pattern, that future generations with a larger sense of humanity will appreciate more than the present.