Snow and Tears

BOY AT THE WINDOW

Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a God-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to paradise.

The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.

~ Richard Wilbur

The morning air is all awash with angels.

Lots of us homemakers, in the Northern Hemisphere anyway, are writing about laundry, as the summer sunshine makes it easy to use the fresh warm air to do part of the job. Cathy even posted a poem, which reminded me of my own favorite laundry poem. Funny, it's from a man's point of view, and written by a man who probably didn't have too much direct experience, but maybe that's why he could see not just the mundane and practical aspects, but the poetry and love of washing and drying the clothes of our fellow humans.
.

 Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

    The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,

And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul

Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple

As false dawn.

                          Outside the open window

The morning air is all awash with angels.

    Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,

Some are in smocks; but truly there they are.

Now they are rising together in calm swells

Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear

With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

    Now they are flying in place, conveying

The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving

And staying like white water; and now of a sudden

They swoon down into so rapt a quiet

That nobody seems to be there.

                                                       The soul shrinks

    From all that it is about to remember,

From the punctual rape of every blessèd  day,

And cries,

                  “Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,

Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam

And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”

    Yet, as the sun acknowledges

With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,

The soul descends once more in bitter love

To accept the waking body, saying now

In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

       “Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;

Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;

Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,

And the heaviest nuns walk in pure floating

Of dark habits,

                          Keeping their difficult balance.”           

--Richard Wilbur

More or less of what?

My thoughts about children's books and Lent converge on this excerpt from Richard Wilbur's More Opposites, which I think one of The Most Fun collections of poems and drawings. I don't even require another person to read Wilbur's humorous poems to -- they often make me chuckle contentedly or muse to myself. I see that I already posted this particular one, but it was years ago, and I for one can use it often.

The illustrations of this question in the book include a simple drawing of people with distressed faces holding their tummies. I think the cartoon at bottom makes a similar companion to the poem.

It's #15 in the More Opposites book:

The opposite of less is more.
What's better? Which one are you for?
My question may seem simple, but
The catch is -- more or less of what?

"Let's have more of everything!" you cry.
Well, after we have had more pie,
More pickles, and more layer cake,
I think we'll want less stomach-ache.

The best thing's to avoid excess.
Try to be temperate, more or less.

There is a Mennonite cookbook titled More With Less, from which I gleaned many good cooking ideas in the early days of my homemaking career. But more valuable than the actual recipes was the refreshing concept that one might have more health and more enjoyment of eating and probably more money to spend on other things if you ate less.

Of course this is something we need to keep in mind all the time, not just during Lent. The church fathers caution us not to eat so much food that we aren't able to pray after eating it; an overfull stomach hinders prayer. If it's possible that Less Food = More Prayer....
     Let's just pause and think on that.

On today's theme, about spending time

In honor of the day, a favorite love poem by Richard Wilbur. All our loves flow from the Holy Trinity -- Happy Valentine's Day! 

 

A Late Aubade

You could be sitting now in a carrel

Turning some liver-spotted page,

Or rising in an elevator-cage

Toward Ladies’ Apparel.

You could be planting a raucous bed

Of salvia, in rubber gloves,

Or lunching through a screed of someone’s loves

With pitying head,

Or making some unhappy setter

Heel, or listening to bleak

Lecture on Schoenberg’s serial technique.

Isn’t this better?

Think of all the time you are not

Wasting, and would not care to waste,

Such things, thank God, not being to your taste.

Think what a lot

Of time, by woman’s reckoning,

You’ve saved, and so may spend on this,

You who had rather lie in bed and kiss

Than anything.

It’s almost noon, you say? If so,

Time flies, and I need not rehearse

The rosebuds-theme of centuries of verse.

If you must go,

Wait for a while, then slip downstairs

And bring us up some chilled white wine,

And some blue cheese, and crackers, and some fine

Ruddy-skinned pears.

--Richard Wilbur

Of that I must be shriven

I love the way Richard Wilbur gets to the heart of things. 

A Reckoning

At my age, one begins

To chalk up all his sins,

Hoping to wipe the slate

Before it is too late.

Therefore I call to mind

All memories of the kind

That make me wince and sweat

And tremble with regret.

What do these prove to be?

In every one, I see

Shocked faces that, alas,

Now know me for an ass.

Fatuities that I

Have uttered, drunk or dry,

Return now in a rush

And make my old cheek blush.

But how can I repent

From mere embarrassment?

Damn-foolishness can’t well

Entitle me to Hell.

Well, I shall put the blame

On the pride that’s in my shame.

Of that I must be shriven

If I’m to be forgiven.

--Richard Wilbur

Matthew VI, 28 FF. - Richard Wilbur

November 15 was the beginning of our Orthodox Nativity fast, known also as Advent or St. Philip's Fast. There doesn't seem to be anything clearly on my mind to write about it, which isn't surprising, seeing as fasting always reveals a pervasive disorderedness.

But last year I posted this poem that seemed appropriate, and here it is again, worth further consideration, I think.

A blessed Advent to all who come here!

Matthew VI, 28 FF.

Rabbi, we Gadarenes
Are not ascetics; we are fond of wealth and possessions.
Love, as you call it, we obviate by means
Of the planned release of aggressions.

We have deep faith in prosperity.
Soon, it is hoped, we will reach our full potential.
In the light of our gross product, the practice of charity
Is palpably inessential.

It is true that we go insane;
That for no good reason we are possessed by devils;
That we suffer, despite the amenities which obtain
At all but the lowest levels.

We shall not, however, resign
Our trust in the high-heaped table and the full trough.
If you cannot cure us without destroying our swine,
We had rather you shoved off.

--Richard Wilbur