The Glow from Brief Light

Sally Thomas's book of poems was published just in time for me to get a copy and read it during Advent. The title is Brief Light: Sonnets and Other Small Poems, and these poems are so illuminating, they fit right in with this season when the Light of the World first shined upon us.

Various sorts of light, or the lack of it, are an important aspect of many of the selections. The title brings to mind wintry light that is brief and thin - and there are several poems for this darker season of the year we have entered, with titles and subjects including Christmas, New Year's, Advent, frost and snow.

I like the "small poem" aspect of the collection, seeing as I am eternally poetry-challenged and usually put off by the ones with very many stanzas. "Snow Weather" is the shortest in the book, and manages, and partly through its very brevity, to capture a dramatic moment that grabs at my own heart.

Snow Weather

A falcon on a wire
Against the laden sky
Scanned his brown empire
With a black-ice eye.

Nothing beneath him stirred
In that sunless instant,
But my heart, for a keen-eyed bird
Blind to me, or indifferent.

The light that Thomas shines on this event reveals something in her own soul, and searches out even the falcon's impulses.

Birds abound in the poems: a wren in "Tornado Watch," and the "Mourning Dove" whose being she "felt in the small of my back/The soft clattering updraft of wings." But the starlings in "Poem in Advent" are the most glorious. This is the first poem I've read about the birds that she so aptly describes in couplets beginning with these:

At twilight the poplars, upright and naked,
Wear starlings like restless leaves. Unafflicted

By the cold, they come and go in noisy shifts,
Filling the trees, free-falling into updrafts....

And going on to relate how the starling flock, though "harbinger of every nightfall," is not only unafflicted by the cold but is a hopeful reminder to us of where we have come from, and "never mournful."

This reminds me of the prayer read at every Orthodox Vespers, "Thou appointest the darkness and there was the night." It was after years of hearing this line that it began to sink into my being that God Himself fills the night that He created, and is to us like the black night into which Thomas's starlings settle. "Darkness, careful, cups them in its hand."

The subject matter of the collection ranges far and wide and shows how rich a life is lived by this woman interested in everything. Many poems about children and family, her motherly concerns -- and marriage, and depression, boats, a snake, depression. But all with a ray of light revealing the transcendent quality of our existence, the interconnectedness of everything.

This is the first time I've been so bold as to review a book of poetry, and I don't know that I've read many such reviews, either. I don't know where to stop, when most of the poems are a pleasure from the first reading and also promise a greater reward if I will spend more time with them.

But let me mention another one or two: "Introvert" is chilling in its description of forced narcissus, "all sweetness, winter-white" alongside a man's desire to break into his woman's inwardness, even to "prise her open, bone from hinging bone...." And "Lamplight" is a favorite of mine so far, in which the poet shares the simple event and startling perspective of looking in instead of out at her bedroom window one night, where 

...the room shone privately
As with a happiness, a mystery to me.
I stood outside and wondered at that glow.

There is plenty of wisdom shining from the poems in Brief Light, gifts that will go on giving. I am soaking up the glow.

Here is all alright.

My house is full with babies and their parents who were my own babies not long ago. I am having a great time reading Frog and Toad, walking down to the creek with Scout to clip sprays of berries and branches of redwood greenery, dandling the littlest ones on my knee....don't know when or if I will get those blinds dusted because there is still grocery shopping to do....wonder if I could squeeze in a service at church this morning while the others are out hiking in the mud....After all, I made the pies last night and they are in the freezer, all white and stiff and not giving a hint as to their glory soon to be revealed.
 
It's the day of the eve of the Feast, and I am weary, yes. It seems to be a fitting state of body and even of mind and heart, to be at least a tiny bit poor in spirit, in order to receive the Lord and the Joy of the Lord.

I want to be sure to wish all of my friends in Blogland a Very Merry Christmas! I pray that in whatever state you are, you can know something of what it means that all is alright. God is with us.

A Christmas Carol


The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all alright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,

And all the stars looked down.

-- G.K. Chesterton

 

This joy repairs.

The Nativity of Christ

Behold the father is his daughter's son,
The bird that built the nest is hatched therein,
The old of years an hour hath not outrun,
Eternal life to live doth now begin,
The Word is dumb, the mirth of heaven doth weep,
Might feeble is, and force doth faintly creep.

O dying souls, behold your living spring;
O dazzled eyes, behold your sun of grace;
Dull ears, attend what word this Word doth bring;
Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace.
From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs
This life, this light, this Word, this joy repairs.

Gift better than himself God doth not know;
Gift better than his God no man can see.
This gift doth here the giver given bestow;
Gift to this gift let each receiver be.
God is my gift, himself he freely gave me;
God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me.

Man altered was by sin from man to beast;
Beast's food is hay, hay is all mortal flesh.
Now God is flesh and lies in manger pressed
As hay, the brutest sinner to refresh.
O happy field wherein that fodder grew,
Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew.

--Robert Southwell - 16th century

Grotto of the Nativity - Bethlehem

If all the world a single body shared --

 

The Antidote

If all the world a single body shared --
One heart, one breath, one blood, one flesh, one life --
Then sin has not one cell, one atom spared
The poison of shared wickedness and strife.

What wickedness, what strife, you well may ask,
Oblivious that you yourself are sick,
That fallen nature’s health is but a mask
And trust in this world just a devil’s trick.

We are one body, and our body died
The day we sinned, the days we sinned anew,
The walking-dead until the Crucified
By dying killed our sin to make life true.

And so, live well, ye merry gentlemen:
Sin's antidote was born in Bethlehem.


--Fr. Louis Tarsitano

Athanasius - All the disciples despise death.

On this Sunday in the Orthodox Church we remember the Holy Forefathers, the faithful ancestors of Christ, many of whom are named in a long list in the services yesterday and today, men and women like David, Jael, Daniel, Rachel, Moses and Ruth....

The Land of the Living Icon at Chora

And the hymns sing of how they all, long since passed from this earthly existence, are even now "in the Land of the Living." Thomas Hopko in The Winter Pascha mentions a church near Constantinople where a huge mosaic of Christ is named: "The Land of the Living. "I found a photo of it (above).

I learned in the short account of the life of Athanasius at the beginning of his On the Incarnation that the last and worst persecution of Christians ended in Egypt in 311 A.D., when Athanasius was about fourteen. From the age of five he had lived with the constant threat of death, and with the ever-present reality of persecution of his friends and family. The behavior of the ungodly is irrational and inhuman, and tends to cause great pain and suffering, often unto death, not only of the innocent but also of the most Christ-like. As an adult the scenes and events of his childhood seem to be fresh in his mind when he writes:

A very strong proof of this destruction of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by the present fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Saviour, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish. But now that the Saviour has raised his body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection. But that devil who of old wickedly exulted in death, now that the pains of death are loosed, he alone it is who remains truly dead.

I started composing this post about death and the saint's childhood before the horrific murders at a Connecticut school last week. I found the description Athanasius gives, of people bravely and even joyfully facing death daily, foreign to my 21st-century suburban self. But the topic turns out to be pertinent, and the recent stories of gutsy teachers in our own country inspiring -- especially when taken with the letter from our Archbishop Tikhon after that event:

"Concerning those who have fallen asleep, Saint Paul exhorts us not to "grieve even as others who have no hope" [1 Thessalonians 4:13]. And yet, herein he does not forbid us from grieving. Now is the time for us to weep, but we must weep with the firm hope that comes from our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. "Shed tears, but remain calm; weep modestly, and with fear of God," writes Saint John Chrysostom. And following this example, each of us must strive to transform our sorrow into prayer.

Just this week I was asked to tell one of my favorite Bible verses, one that readily comes to mind without effort. It is always this one, that speaks of our complete dependence on the Lord as our LIFE, whether living or dying. Our leaves will not wither, because Christ Himself is The Land of the Living.

But I am like a green olive tree 

in the house of God:

I trust in the mercy of God

for ever and ever. 

Psalm 52:8

Athanasius - Christ cleansed the air.

From On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius:

 ...the air is the sphere of the devil, and the enemy of our race, who, having fallen from heaven, endeavors with the other evil spirits who shared in his disobedience both to keep souls from the truth and to hinder the progress of those who are trying to follow it. The apostle refers to this when he says, "According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience." But the Lord came to overthrow the devil and to purify the air and to make "a way" for us up to heaven, as the apostle says, "through the veil, that is to say, His flesh." This had to be done through death, and by what other kind of death could it be done, save by a death in the air, that is, on the cross? Here, again, you see how right and natural it was that the Lord should suffer thus; for being thus "lifted up," He cleansed the air from all the evil influences of the enemy. "I beheld Satan as lightning falling," He says; and thus he re-opened the road to heaven, saying again, "Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors."

These two fought bravely.

Two important people in my life died on this day. I didn't know either of them personally, but both have contributed hugely to the presence of true and living Orthodox faith in America, that Church in which I've found the fullness of Him Who fills all in all. Every year that we come to this date finds me more thankful.

Saint Herman of Alaska, whose feast we commemorate today, arrived in Alaska in 1794 and died there in 1837. On the occasion of his canonization in 1969 Bishop Dimitri spoke:

The Church on earth lives in a loving fellowship with the saints who have already run their race, who have fought the good fight, and have received their crowns (2 Timothy 4:7) (James 1:12). This is what the Apostle means when he says that we are compassed about or surrounded by the witness-martyrs or saints. We are assured both of their presence and their interest in us. In fact, they are concerned about the whole world and its salvation, for "there is joy in heaven over the repentance of one sinner" (Luke 15:7). 

Father Schmemann was born in 1921 into a family of Russian emigres, and came to the United States in 1951 to join the faculty of St. Vladimir's Seminary, where two of my own parish priests sat under his teaching. He reposed in the Lord in 1983. Not only has my life been enriched broadly by his contributions to the whole of Orthodoxy in America, but by my reading directly what he wrote, especially For the Life of the World, and his journals.

I'm so thankful, too, that I can commune with that cloud of witnesses in church this morning. So as to not be late, I'll just finish by copying here what I posted last year on this happy day. And it is another cold one!

It seems fitting that we commemorate St. Herman of Alaska on this date, when winter is making itself felt. I've written before here and here about Father Herman, how he spurned the cold, befriended the animals, and interceded between the Aleuts and the powerful people who would exploit them.
His is a good example in the Advent season, of how to keep our hearts and activities focused on the Kingdom of God in the face of distractions. And if we have a church service to attend where we can share in the Life of Christ together with Saint Herman and all the Cloud of Witnesses, we are very blessed!
I just learned (and am adding this paragraph to my original post) that today is also the anniversary of the repose of Father Alexander Schmemann, another shining star in our church family. This note about both men leads to further inspiration from and about Fr. Alexander, who rests firmly in the tradition of Saint Herman. I'm ever so thankful to have this coinciding of the celebration of two of my favorites.