Poetry for 2015 into 2016

Poetry for 2015 into 2016

Poetry you have written, perhaps in sync with the Christmas spirit, in sympathy with the flowering trees that think it is Spring, in prayerful reflection on the situations of refugees, or in appreciation of learning the name of a homeless person who accepts the coffee you offer, is welcome here.  

Also welcome are the poetic voices of those of us in parishes in transition.  What does it feel like to, temporarily we hope, be the lay persons with "in-Charge" after our  names?

Send such poems and others fresh out of your printer to me at campbellba@earthlink.net.  (Temporarily I hope) I can't open the gmail address you may have.

Peace and keep writing,

Barbara A. Campbell

Connecticut' Diocesan Poet

           

            Sometimes the Gospel is direct inspiration as Mark 13:1-8 was for Garth A. Myers when he heard it read at Trinity Episcopal Church, Wethersfield.  He wrote “Shine like All the Brightness of the Sky" while sitting in the pew and he hopes to set these words to music.

           

Shine like All the Brightness of the Sky

Poem/Song by Garth Myers, Trinity Episcopal Church, Wethersfield

Inspired by Gospel Mark 13:1-8

Shine like all the brightness of the sky

Shine like rays of sunlight on the land

Rejoice in the path of this one life

Rejoice in all the fullness of your time

Goodbye to all the pain on the earth

Farewell to every weight that holds you down

Give birth to a new and lighter day

Good morning to an age of perfect peace

            We can dream our way

            Past all the buildings tumbling down

            We can dream our way

            Through the blood in which we drown

            If we can’t dream, we fall apart, break our hearts

            Drop back into the pit where we start

A thin black line that stretched from end to end

We know how thin and easy to break

Link arms and hold each one of us up

Together raise the good news cup

And shine like all the brightness of the sky

Shine like rays of sunlight on the land

Rejoice in the path of this one life

Rejoice in all the fullness of your time

Rejoice

********************

Sometimes poems are shared as signs of encouragement and and community.  Aldon Hynes' poem was written on a church retreat at Camp Incarnation and sent to Jane Mansfield Bouvier who responded with one of her own.

The Retreat

by Aldon Hynes
Grace and St. Peter's, Woodbridge

It had been thirty years
since I last came
to this wooded camp.

I was living in the city then
going to church
with hundreds 
of young men and women
artists and businessmen
trying to find themselves
in their crazy twenties
in a crazy city.

I was trying to find something then too,
God, friendship, myself, meaning.

I was awkward.
I was other.
I only fit in,
around the edges.

What would the camp be like
for me
thirty years later?

Then, 
I came,
seeking 
a blessing.

At this retreat
we came
to practice
pronouncing blessings.

Blessed are you
o road,
that has carried
so many school buses
and church vans,
so many hopes
and fears
to these
hallowed woods.

You’ve been repaved
so many times
over the past
three decades,
May you continue to be
a path
to those who seek.

Blessed are you,
o acorns.
Your ancestors
were buried
by forgetful squirrels
when I was here last.

May your descendants
continue to fall
punctuating 
the reflections 
of other
retreatants

Blessed are you
o squirrels
running from tree to tree
following ever bending
paths, 
performing 
leaps of faith
we wouldn’t dare.

Your great great grandparents
leapt from tree to tree
the same way
years ago.

May your faith 
and playfulness
live in your grandchildren
and continue to inspire
those yet to dome.

Blessed are you,
o buildings,
so many the same,
though renovated,
and some new.
May you continue
to shelter the seeker
and provide memories.

On the deck,
in quiet meditation,
we looked at the trees
the way
I’ve sat
and looked
at paintings
in art museums.

By the lake
I’d often swum
a piece of bark
rested
on the outdoor altar,
it’s probably now been moved
during a Eucharist.
What does this altar
have in store
for me?

Perhaps, 
I’m finding,
what I was 
truly looking for
three decades ago,
not some great insight,
friendship,
or goal,
but the beauty 
of always
finding 
and always 
being found,
the beauty
of always
blessing,
and always 
being blessed.

 Chapel on the Green
   by Jane Mansfield Bouvier

The morning rain ends.
Sun breaks through the clouds above the New Haven green.
The trees proclaim autumn in bold orange, red, and gold.
We are here to celebrate Mass with the homeless.
The congregation gathers on the green.
John, a professional drummer, arranges volunteer musicians.
They sit in a semi-circle before blue plastic containers.
They will beat a rhythm with drumsticks to the hymns.
“We Shall Overcome” is first.
There is much to overcome.
There is homelessness, poverty, stigma.
There  is mental illness and addiction.
There are physical limitations.
We sing with conviction.
Our pastor gives the eulogy.
She says, “Every life is precious.”
She says, “ You are all made in the image of God.”
She exhorts the congregation not to be silent.
The prayers of the faithful follow.
One man prays for a friend about to have surgery.
Another prays for the homeless community.
A woman prays for all the soup kitchens in the city.
One man prays for the two people he stole from.
On and on go the prayers of the faithful.
They will not be silenced.
More prayers and the sign of peace.
We move about, acknowledging each other's presence.
We say, “Peace to you,” and “God bless you.”
The communion wafer is dipped in grape juice instead of wine.
Our pastor explains this is out of respect for those fighting addiction.
After communion, we sing.
“Amazing Grace” is the hymn.
I clear the lump from my throat and join in.
We are a community.   

****************

May the litany below put you in a good place for continued writing of poetry.

V:  We who play with words and are played with by your             Word,

R:  Gracious Lord, hear us.

V:  From drivel and saying the obvious,

R:  Good Lord, deliver us.

V:  When phrases stick in our minds,

R:  Help us develop them.

V:  When metaphor expresses the truth even better,

R:  Guide it home.

V:  When we're stuck,

R:  Send us another word, or three or four.

V:  Teach us to appreciate community,

R:  And ask for editing.

V:  Help us to accept when the poem really ends,

R:  Gracious Lord, hear us.

Cookout in the Courtyard, Part 2

Continuing Poetry from Cookout in the Courtyard

            We opened then with a haiku about lights at dusk.  Now from Liz Massey of St. Mark’s, New Canaan, we have critters, (black and white with tail raised?  read on!) playing in the woods and on the road also at dusk.  With the second poem, Liz accepted the invitation to write poems in accordance with daily themes of General Convention 2015.  Her hourglass shaped poem on the theme of Praise was read, excerpted, during the liturgy on the second day of General Convention.

VOYAGERS

by Elizabeth T. Massey

St. Mark’s, New Canaan, CT

dusk draws out night wanderers

shadows on the black road’s meanders

between darker ash foreboding sight

midsummer eve plays out late

tag and hide-and-seek for adolescent

foragers in the woods

headlights glaze their eyes

spotlight their white capes

their ebony bodies merged

what do they know of danger

that noisy beast bearing

down fast rattling them

one raised tail signs scatter

they scramble tumble bump

new taste fear of the unknown

the beast stops confused     five

innocents running this way and that 

the heart within the beast heaves

loves sheer loveliness     asks

bright stars crescent moon to caress

blessed union one with the other

beast and babies move apart

depart     safe homes draw

to other conjunctions 

PRAISE

THE  COSMIC  HOURGLASS

Homage to George Herbert

When God Creator in loving word and deed rendered planet earth

He packed it full of sky, leaping crags, green hills, and sea

With two joyous humans adding notes of mirth

Until a heart-deep sadness came to be

By dint of sin, and thereby dearth

For you, my dear, and me

Of selfless love.

Instead, death

The end of peace above

The braided funeral laurel wreath

No longer sail of angels’ wings to hove

Our frail craft safe to shore, but dark-eyed stealth

Tracking us error by error away from heaven’s starry trove.

Then - in time - the son descended to the world’s morass 

To bring a message full of lasting hope and cheer,

Birthed by Abba and Mary (full of class)

With stalwart Joseph standing near,

A youth who would surpass

All other boys down here.

Jesus at last

He did become

The throat of the hourglass

That spins encompassing the sun

The moons, the comets, the galaxies en masse

That sends new-born souls down and draws back ones

Abba and the Spirit inspire to navigate life’s shoals and into heaven pass.

Elizabeth T. Massey

St. Mark’s Church, New Canaan CT

Poem read during Prayers of the People at Eucharist, General Convention, Day 2, 2015.

Poets' Cookout 2015

Poets’ Cookout            July 2115

            In spite of rain in the morning and the continued threat of afternoon rain, poets met outdoors in the Courtyard of St. Mark’s, New Britain to enjoy a cookout and learn about reading poetry theologically from Wendy Lyons and Liz Massey who had taken a summer course at Yale.  Poetry was heard from poets of Grace and St. Peter’s, Woodbridge; Holy Trinity, Enfield; St. Mark’s, New Canaan; St. Paul’s, Plainfield; St. John’s, East Hartford; Old St. Andrew’s, Bloomfield; and St. Mark’s, New Britain.

            Merrill Gonzales introduced us to the evening’s reading with a haiku of evening lights.

            Kathy Carle read a portion of her trilogy entitled INNOCENT which, by focusing on a burnt piece of wood from a church burning, tells part of the story of the genocide in Rwanda.  The Christ figure formed becomes integral to the plea to “Take it to America, let them see, let them hear.”

            The Rev. Jim Bradley sent us a poem written for the Life Profession of Shane and Elizabeth founding a new Episcopal order called The Companions of St. Mary the Apostle (for Mary Magdalene) at Holy Cross, West Park, N. Y.

            Barbara Campbell, riveted to the horror of the shootings in the church at Charleston, S. C., relives working for the church “the year after the Governor stood in the schoolhouse door” at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.  What rings loud and clear is the line from the Confession that we be forgiven for “the evil done on our behalf.”  Keep in mind the events described happened when Joe Namath had just received his first professional football contract and was being driven around campus in a limousine, when Bear Bryant was the football coach, and when the only air conditioned dorm on campus was for male athletes.

Read, ponder and do keep writing poetry,

Barbara A. Campbell

Connecticut's Diocesan Poet

Haiku

by Merrill Gonzales

St. Paul’s, Plainfield

evening delight
fireflies competing with
the garden LED's

*******************

INNOCENT

                     by Kathy Carle

                St. Mark’s, New Britain

In the Craftsman’s cellar workshop

neatly laid out are the bits, burrs, buffers he uses

to smooth, sand, debride a stump or branch

he chances upon in his walks,

and in one corner “Innocent Observance,”

a huge section of bark from a singular tree,

at the heart of it a figure with a history of disaster.

Come late to church, a young man named Innocent was in time to watch helplessly

as his church, 650 women and children locked inside, was burned to the ground. Those who tried to escape were hacked to death by Hutus.

A small tree next to the church had been charred. Innocent pulled it up by its roots and fled to the hillside. Shocked into insensibility,

he neither ate nor drank for two days.

When he regained himself, in his hands was a Christ

carved from the wood of the tree.

A traveler returning brought this directly to the Craftsman. She told how Innocent had given it to her:

“I can’t have it here; each time I hold it

I hear the screams unbearably.

Take it to America,

let them see,

let them hear.”

    The Craftsman mounted the Christ

on his large vee of bark in the shape of Africa

ascending , swirling like a whirlwind of fire.

The Christ nestles in the rift at its heart.

The twinning of two woods – dark char figure against the lighter inner bark of this other tree – tells of fire as destroyer and creator.

Human in agony, pain twisting the length of his face, He stretches his arms upward

and outward, both in supplication and in blessing.

Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

**************************

PROFESSION

by James G. Bradley
7-21-15

Not just an occupation,
though that is the usual definition.
Oh, no, more than that, much more.

“Profession” as a verb, not a noun,
is wondrous indeed.
To avow, to declare, to promise--
“profession” leads into all sorts
of nonsense and wonderment and joy.

To actually 'say so' about
what your lives will be and consist of
and contain.

To 'profess' opens up the possibility
of a future you speak into being.
A future that wouldn't have happened
otherwise, until you spoke it.

Few people in the world
make such a 'profession'--
speak a future and a life
into being like that.

And today you two do.

Astonishing, memorable, inspiring,
full of being and hope and wonderment.
Like that.
Thank you for going to the edge
of what you can know and see
and then stepping off.

And I know, as you step off into what
is not known, not knowable,
you will be caught by loving arms
or learn how to fly.

***********************

50 Years of Reflection                       

and then Charleston

Barbara A. Campbell

Connecticut’s Diocesan Poet

July 2015

I arrived

the year after

“the Governor stood in the schoolhouse door”,

   painted line on the sidewalk still visible.

National Guard had prevailed.

Blacks did enter that door

   and registered for classes

   at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

I stood

in that same Field House

   when the symphony came to play,

rising for the office of governor

   when he entered to join the audience.

I sat as quickly as possible.

The game in the balcony continued,

   “There’s one.”

   “No, he’s OK.  He’s faculty at Stillman.”

And so on to identify

   the 5 or 6 Blacks in the audience

   of 1000 or so.

I ate

   for the first time

   French fried sweet potatoes

in the restaurant

while the Imperial Wizard

of the Ku Klux Klan

was dining there.

I entered

the State owned Green Front store,

   a door for Whites,

   another door for Blacks,

and paid for my bottle of wine

at the one cash register.

I noticed

a car

always parked across the street

a man sitting in it,

watching my apartment.

I called

the Tuscaloosa Police

who came

and told me

“If you want to buy a gun,

we’ll teach you how to use it.”

I drove

my car full of college students,

White and Black,

to a conference

at Sewanee, the University of the South,

   with a list of restaurants

   where a mixed group

   could safely eat.

I watched

   the Crimson Tide Homecoming Parade.

Tuscaloosa High School Band marched.

I asked,

   “There’s a band at Druid City High School.

     Why aren’t they marching?”

I was told,

   “Barbara, you don’t understand.”

And then I remembered

   the fraternity float

   with the brothers

   as 9 Supreme Court Justices

   in blackface.

I encouraged

   university students to tutor Blacks

   in reading

   so they could register to vote.

Those students,

   sons and daughters of plantation owners,

   plantation owners

      who would stop paying tuition

       if they knew

      what their sons and daughters were doing.

Each evening as we entered the University building,

   a man was just leaning against the tree,

      watching.

   Klan or White Citizen’s Council,

      we never knew.

The University withdrew permission

   for use of the University building

   for tutoring purposes.

So we moved to Canterbury Chapel.

My seminary classmates

   marched in Birmingham,

   were arrested,

   put in jail.

Students came to me.

   “Bishop Carpenter is doing nothing

      to get them out of jail.

      Barbara, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll go visit them.”

And I was stopped.

   “You have Connecticut plates on your car, “

     the Chaplain said.

A trip to Tuscaloosa City Hall

   got me Heart of Dixie plates.

A student put them on my car for me.

“Now I’ll go.”

And again the Chaplain stopped me.

   “I forbid you...No, I can’t forbid you.

    You can’t go on working time –

     only on your day off.”

Saturday was 5 days away.

I learned

   I could make a person to person phone call

   to a prisoner in the Birmingham Jail.

Steve was glad to hear from me.

They were being well taken care of.

Would be released,

by Saturday, my day off.

I watched

   as the Chaplain’s Black maid

   worked all morning in his house,

and after lunch,

   walked with his wife to teach

   at the nursery school the church ran;

the Chaplain proudly proclaiming,

   “I pay Mattie out of two different budgets,

   so I don’t have to pay Social Security

   though she for us works fulltime.”

I was invited

   to spend Thanksgiving

   with Bishop Carpenter and his family.

I watched

   his Black maid

   walk behind our chairs at the dinner table

   serving us vegetables

   from the sterling silver dish

   as the bishop carved, very nicely,

   the turkey

   and a Smithfield ham.

After she finished doing the dishes,

   the bishop drove her home in his Rolls Royce.

There was no bus transportation

   in Birmingham.

This month

   all those doors

   within me

   were opened again.

Wednesday Night Bible study.

The stranger welcomed in.

“They were so nice to me.”

Nine counts of murder,

   three of attempted murder.

“We forgive.”

Confederate battle flag

   comes down.

You don’t understand.

And then Obama’s eulogy –

If we knew the AME

we’d know

AME doesn’t make a distinction

between pastoring and public service.

You don’t understand.

We knew exactly what we were doing

   as we did it.

Why else would there be

   one cash register,

   or a score card

      at symphony,

   or a university

      distancing itself

      from reading?

  

 What if

   we stopped distinguishing

   between sacred and secular,

   between ours and the other,

   stopped believing

   in whatever binary you want to set up.

What if

   we accepted

   our actions show the truth.

What if

   our actions,

      not our words,

   say,

“All are loved.”