Death’s darkness calls,
Though his sting removed,
Casting his shadow tall
Over all that may by lost or loved.
His appeal rings with clarion clarity
To doubt what we trust as certainties

For the redeemed he is a servant
Saying to those with ears to hear,
God makes no promise of eighty years.
This message through many means he merchants
That we would from self break free
And fiercely love in word and deed.

Green helmets pop up to peer out
Over the blue battlefield as
The pilots steer, weaving a pattern
Of dodges, rolls and dives, determined
To evade the anticipated shot.
So effective they are, these silent fighter pilots,
At evasion, it does not even matter
That they have no bullets.

Clerihews in the news!

Kim Jong Il
Fired a missile
Disguised as a satellite;
The U.N. sees it as unpolite

Do you clerihew?

Judge Sotomayor
Has got some sore
For saying she’s keener
By being Latina

I know it’s probably not the impression she meant to give, but the quote is just too funny to pass up:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life…” [LA Times]

This morning the frost that’s gathered overnight
Rests on every surface like salt;
On the car’s windows and hood,
On every curled brown leaf,
Across the driveway and the porch,
In the air; it’s white with cold.
In my breath, in and out.

It’s different every time I see it.
And how strange the world looks
Through millions of crystals
Distorting, glazing, crunching,
Or clarifying.

It is new while it lasts
And will be tomorrow if the weather is right.
It’s new each time I see it;
For as many times as it’s come
I wonder if it will ever grow old.

But today will be warm enough that
This first frost will burn off;
The steam is already rising slowly
From beds of stiff, heavy leaves,
And the sun won’t let this new place stay for long.

Already his bright shafts pierce patches on
The ground, where they mingle, cold and indifferent
With sparks just as bright.
Each cold dancing light is crying out
With joyful first breath and melts away
To the gutter, or the earth.

Come again, Come again,
Exultant lights,
Before sister snow
Covers your faces.

Undercurrents of a sweet, sure morning
Flowing behind a night stretched tight across
The drumhead of the sky, when punched through by
Mindful words would they run, and fill my cup?

Today I’ve been browsing through some of G.K. Chesterton’s poems, which, like much of his writing, are fantastic. If you haven’t read The Battle of Lepanto, you must, you must, you must. The poem that I want to look at right now is titled (as is this post) To St. Michael in Time of Peace. It’s basically a one-sided conversation from the poet to Michael the Archangel, and describes various things related to him, i.e. the fight with Lucifer:

When the world cracked because of a sneer in heaven,
Leaving out for all time a scar upon the sky,
Thou didst rise up against the Horror in the highest,
Dragging down the highest that looked down on the Most High:

The part I really want to take a closer look at is this stanza on the incarnation. The wording, imagery and theological truth are profound. Here, take a read (remember: Michael is the “thou”):

When from the deeps of dying God astounded
Angels and devils who do all but die
Seeing Him fallen where thou couldst not follow,
Seeing Him mounted where thou couldst not fly,
Hand on the hilt, thou hast halted all thy legions
Waiting the Tetelestai and the acclaim,
Swords that salute Him dead and everlasting
God beyond God and greater than His Name.

OK. I recall when I was much younger I went to see a play put on at a local church. I believe it was my aunt’s church but that’s rather inconsequential. It was basically a nativity story but had a neat twist where the angels are all debating about how God is to come to Earth. Will he be a great magician? A mighty warrior? A fearless leader? A brilliant philosopher? No, he will be a babe. And of course the angels are astounded.

This stanza of Chesteron’s similarly echoes the wonder of of the inarnation. Not that He came as a little child, but that He came, and was able to come, at all. Angels and demons who are forever immortal gape with wonder at the everlastingly immortal God dying, and the whole world hushed for possibly the most beautiful word in the Greek language, or any language for that matter: tetelestai, it is finished.

I thought this little poem was appropriate given that fall officially started on Saturday. This is definitely my favorite season, but I’m not sure why. Perhaps because the change is so swift and dramatic. The leaves turn and then fall off and the days grow cold and boom! It’s fall! Spring comes on in strides: the winds, and the rain, and the slowly greening plant life. Maybe there’s just something enrapturing about the sudden onset of a rainy, cold, death-ridden season, which should be dismal, but is not.

One day soon, maybe not this week,
Or the next, Our Lady Autumn will rise
From her long, deep slumber
With the remnants of a previous year’s
Merry-making caking her tawny eyes.

A long sigh will escape her lips
Out of the west and into our very woods,
And nestling there in the tree creaks
And cicada’s dying drones,
Will slowly sink towards earth.

Her shaggy robes, remended,
Will snap and beat the lingering warmth
Under the loamy rugs,
To join their own unrestful hibernation
Till Spring cleaning.

Autumn will then burst upwards,
Dousing in cold stillness the lifeblood
That beats faintly out of Summer’s weak heart.
And his fantastic death shrouds will blaze upon the pyre,
Then pale and tatter with a last wheeze.

In a sibilant rush, the Lady will dance
Here and there, making sure all is prepared
For her inaugural feast:
The lights strung up between branches, out of reach,
And the carpeting laid down layer on crunching layer.

Pumpkins and gourds arranged in
Colors that match the decorations,
Cider weeping out through smashed skins.
The brown brew dyes the harvest-producing death;
A funerial tribute to plenty.

At last we will make a solstice toast,
Raising glasses by firelight
To the last fading greenery.
And the mortal crowning of
Our Lady Autumn.

It appears that writing verse in the future tense is strange; too many uses of the world “will.” Anyone have suggestions to get around that?

This is my first attempt at a villanelle. It was fairly hard, especially getting the refrains to make sense in more than one position or form. It’s not very good, in my opinion, though practice may bring me to make a finer version.

There is a fire on a hill,
Set long ago by men of old,
Burning away a bygone chill.

Twas kindled by their ancient skill
In deep forests above the wold;
There is a fire on a hill.

By its light they made mental drill
To fill their minds all they could hold,
Burning away a bygone chill.

The flame is beacon to us still,
And we proclaim with voices bold:
There is a fire on a hill.

Now we hold their high vigil,
Sounding thoughts that they had told,
Burning away a bygone chill.

Rememb’ring this our children will
Shelter their souls against the cold:
There is a fire on a hill,
Burning away a bygone chill.

There you have it. Quite an interesting style of verse if you want to challenge yourself.