Grammar and the Beasts

English teachers must not understand that
grammar is what separates us from the dogs,
who are oblivious to the fact that subjects
verb adjectival objects in, out, and through
prepositional phrases, occasionally adverbally.

Most of their students tune in and out unless tone,
like the promise of a bone, rouses them with a
buzzword or phrase to which they have something
to say, though what came before remains unheard.

When philology is forgotten we no longer gnaw
our words in euphony, working etymologically
to the marrow of their meaning.  We simply lie
lazily until it is our chance to respond or to bark.

But somedays we fall below the hounds bellow,
are shamed by the bird's delightful and aimless tune,
and cannot keep still with the lap-cat's silent and
content life of silent observation and satisfied purrs.

When we forget that words were also wrought to woo,
our courtship will recall the obnoxious quaking of ducks,
whose copulation involves more coercion than consent—
though, there are really very few troubadours among beasts.

When has the pursuant squirrel ceased tree trunk chases
long enough to leave a sonnet in the cache, so that Spring
might yield romance along with acorns?  For that matter,
has the lonesome owl ever recited Neruda under the still
stars of a given evening?  For that matter, when have we?

Perhaps, someday soon, poetry and grammar will give
us the courage to speak ourselves and each other
above the cacophony of the crow's complaints, over
the lion's angry roars, and sad lonely songs of whales.

Break and Bloom

Despite never having asked for
—and my often attempts to shirk—
this state of being and occupation, 
I am a vessel from which Christ 
overflows. Not of the immaculate sort, 
but a simpler kind,  which serves as a 
thurible swinging along sidewalks, 
incensing passerbys with an aroma 
not my own.

Despite that fallen tendency to collapse 
myself and my world into something small 
enough to be thought, his image and signature 
are radiantly written in all that lives and moves 
(even the stones quiver with their vital role to play) 
although we do not take the time to marvel 
at the Word's work, the calligraphy of being.

We think the glory is somewhere else and 
it couldn't possibly be us. But we have much 
to learn from the unmoving and unwavering 
mystery of the flowers, who have no legs 
with which to leave their native soil.  The bud 
never asked for petals to flaunt.   
      
He was simply there, 
between the stalk and the air, 
and in just being there

he blossomed. 

We are where we are, 
between whence and whither 
and when we are open to the 
to and fro we can be like this. 
But we are always blooming 
bliss by nature of our being, 
where the saddest and loneliest 
are such because they write
epics no one reads. Our longing 
to blossom and to overflow 
is not so much in some kind of life; 

for, by living any kind of life 
we already do. Rather, it is to 
erupt in taking notice and giving 
thanks for what we have and are. 

All of us are there and 
—you might be startled to know—
it's always been here. 
If only we'd break off from busyness 
and break forth in bloom.

Two Wash Your Face

At the end of the evening fold the washcloth
in two as it drinks the warm water and let the
soap sing before it greets your day-worn face.

Scrub this face and follow its broad contours
along the ways of forehead, nose, and cheeks,
as if this land were foreign and not your own.

Keeping it moving until you can drop the
cloth and feel her ghostly and future fingers
tracing your face at the end of the evening.

Your appearance is not your own to behold,
but hers to enjoy; and her eyes are so unlike
the tired and flat ones found in your mirror.

Walking in the dark hall toward bed, her hands
still run along your face like waves crashing
against the shore of you, felt long after leaving

the beach at which you both have yet to be.

Imago Dei

Even the sharpest tool in the shed is just a tool dead and dumb,
having no will in its wielding, but always yielding to be used
according to the workman's intent. To swing, to stay; to be sharp,
to rust—there are no choices to be faced in the life of an axe.

Thus, another analogy falls of short explaining human liberty:
the axe is heaped with the stick and the stone and worthless
grimy coins—while free will and the human paradox stands
as a thing too bizarre to be compared with any other referent.

We are cursed to stand as unaccompanied anomalies, whose
every portrait is smudged and blurred. But this is to be expected
of creatures made in the image of the Undepicted; whose life lets
no image be its grave, except perhaps mysterious and mortal man.

Despite, and yet somehow even through, our frequent falls
he saves images, those broken but beloved analogies, restoring
his much-mangled form into greater clarity. He holds that stick
pushing the stone, such that his hand moves within the lonely pebble.

His face emerges as he polishes the past from an unwashed coin as
words are reminding through shining from whom the wealth came.
By now we see that it is still a forester's will, which sharpens and
swings. But without an axe, we ask, what work would be done at all?

While he could not be held in any meager analogy, he despises none
of the stories each tries to tell. To be big is to celebrate in the small
and to see one's character depicted in the discarded images. Perhaps,
we like-fated beings might, in every gifted day, humbly do the same.

The Prestige

This poem comes after watching one of my favorite movies, The Prestige.

Everything is magic and it all works
by those rules known by every heart:

The first is the Magician's presentation
of something ordinary and Pledge that it
will not surprise us anymore than usual.
It could be a dull coin dragged from one
of your pockets, a lovely assistant who
we've all been watching anyway; doves
are not uncommon, but anything will do:
so far you are probably underwhelmed.

Then there's the Turn where what we knew
is taken away with the Magician waving
his hands before our faces in empty air.
To stop here would not be magic, but only
flashy robbery, which makes up so much
of our lives: lives full of things taken, stolen,
leaving.  It might definitely be called a trick,
but hardly magic.
    
                           The Turn is when time
slows as the glass vase falls, when the
heart sinks as we bury our dead heroes,
when we know her eyes have turned and
her footsteps fade off in the distance, just
as they begin to swell in our memory.
The sun must always set and over time
each and every moment will vanish ...

Here we realize that even the smallest
coin would buy something and the world
is quieter without the dove cooing—so the
audience holds its applause and its breath.

We all know we need the return, the Prestige,
the resurrection.  We need to know that love
has not been sawed in half yet again, nor has
it been lost to thin air.

                                       So now the Magician
brings back what we once called ordinary, but
now with something extra.  We count the hearts
or spades, flip it over, and find joy that what we
hold is very much ours and it always has been.
Everything that was volunteered was returned—
the only difference is, this time we're grateful.

We're surrounded by magic and know its comings
and its goings. So please look around, see the Pledges
made to you in this moment, and know that, even now,
they are making the Turn, like all those other late-loved
things which took your breath in passing and left that
twinge in your chest.  I've told you what comes next,
so, for now, what you must do is just wait ...

To Inspecter 74

I found your yellow ticket in my pocket
the other day, and I thought should let
you know my jacket is holding up well.

It gets cold where I am and this tweed
keeps me as warm as the Scottish sheep
from whose wool the fabric was woven.

It has elbow patches now—in case you were
wondering—and my breast pocket always
wafts the lingering scent of pipe tobacco.

Sometimes I think of how your precise
eyes followed each of these seams, to
keep its wearer from catching a draft,

or how your hands might have run along
these folds, lapels, and sleeves to make
sure the weave ran smooth and straight.

I'm wearing a light blue shirt with it today:
is that okay? Do inspectors ever wonder
what shirts or men might fill these coats?

I imagine you are a man with round glasses and
a trimmed moustache who ends each of his days
judging jackets with some well-aged Bourbon.

But there are other times, when I imagine you're
a stunning woman, whose attentive eyes could
lovingly gather up all the loose threads of my life
and would weave them into something beautiful . . .

If the latter is the case, let's go on a long evening
stroll down by the water—and don't worry—
if it gets cold, I have a jacket you can borrow.

Dwarvish and Valaam Chant

Far over the misty mountains cold,

To dungeons deep and caverns old,

We must away, ere break of day,

To claim our long-forgotten gold.

The pines were roaring on the height

The winds were moaning in the night

The fire was red, it flaming spread

The trees like torches, blazed with light.

If you're having trouble getting this song out of your head after watching The Hobbit this weekend, or if you want something in the same style, I got it.  I was wondering, what it was, besides the depth of the dwarves' range, that resonated with me in this song.  Then I realized, dwarvish "chant" has the same thick and haunting bass drones (ison) as the Russian Orthodox chant from Valaam.

Both styles of chants have a single distinct melody, but rather than shadow the lead with some kind of harmonious parallel melody, the basses simply and deliberately shift up and down to change "the ground of the sound."  I don't know if Howard Shore or the other composers were inspired by Valaam, but it is interesting to note that monks, like dwarves, are bearded men, who enjoy singing and ale (Trappists), but who are more profoundly united by a common mission: their longing return to their true home, which was lost long ago.

The Beatitudes

Rejoice, Thou Bride Unwedded

A little more polyphonic