Poetry


This is the harvest, the crops full and ready,
Prepared by God’s hands and now given to men.
Render thanksgiving with hearts full of gladness
To God who in mercy brings harvest again.

This is the harvest, how fruitful the labour!
The fields have matured at our Saviour’s command.
Come, gather in all the sheaves and the produce,
The gifts God has brought forth from out of the land.

This is the harvest, the bounty exceeds us,
And we are blessed richly with more than we need.
Move us, O Spirit, to share this abundance,
The weakened to nourish, the hungry to feed.

This is the harvest, give thanks to the Father,
And lift up to Jesus a joyful refrain.
This is the harvest, give thanks to the Spirit,
To God who in mercy brings harvest again.

Mathew A. Block
October 11, 2009

Do you remember when pages had purpose?
     Bought with a price,
          Used sparingly, with great intent and planning?

How monks toiled!
     Candlelit caverns with countless copyists
          Producing manuscripts in unending silence
               (Save the scritch-scritch-scratch of pen on velum).
They quiet themselves that others might speak:
     Ancient texts, preserved for posterity.
A Homer here.
     An Augustine there.
Or greater still, an Illuminated Scripture;
     God’s very breath upon a page!
          The Word made flesh made Word again.

This morning, I sit at the kitchen table,
     Thumbing through the daily mail,
          Picking out the trash.
A flyer here.
     A credit-card offer there.
Pages of words
     and words
          and words
               with trivial purpose and vacuous meaning.

Do you remember when pages had purpose?
     Bought with a price?
          Used sparingly, with great inte

– – –

The poet frowns;
     It had been unnecessary to repeat the third line.
Sighing, he rips the marred sheet from his notebook,
     Crumples it (massacring its feeble body),
          And throws it to the floor.

Then, taking up his pen, he starts anew,
     Spilling ink upon a fresh, blank page.

I have spent a lot of time as of late reading Donne’s poetry. This, combined with my pudding brain and the few essays I have left to work on, resulted a few days ago in the parody below. If you’d like to see what the original poem is (and you should as it’s brilliant), see the previous post where I speak about Holy Sonnet 15.

To his self, upon staying up late working

What if this essay were the last thing I write?
…..Mark on this page, O Pen, the measure of thy worth
…..When set against the journals of the earth,
And say whether mine has any might.
The thesis is obscured by inky plight,
…..Brought on by using words with too much girth.
…..Can I unto this mess have given birth,
…..Which now’is abomination in mine sight?
No, no, but as I claimed in essays past
…..When readers found them hard to understand,
…..Such error entered not by my own hand,
But to the text by audience imputed wast.
…..The teachers say we cannot learn intent;
…..How judge me then, not knowing what I meant?

As of late, my mind is an awful lot like a bowl of pudding. Seriously. As the end of this semester bears down upon me, I realize how much there is to do and how little time I have left in which to complete it all. A fifteen page paper on John Donne, a 20 minute presentation on 20th Century uses of Donne, a fifteen page paper on Henry James, and a ten page report for my “Language Awareness” class (that one I’m far less concerned about). And did I mention that tomorrow I’ve a 20 minute presentation to give on the morphology of Classical Sumerian, as well as a midterm to write? Pudding – there’s no other word to describe the state of my mind these days.

So don’t be expecting any truly insightful post for a bit (assuming that you’ve found any of the previous at least slightly intelligent in nature). I’ve no time to record such thoughts. Instead, as I’ve been reading the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, I thought I’d share a favourite of mine – albeit with no exegesis or interpretation. I find the poems richly rewarding, both as literary pieces and as devotional material. As to why I have chosen this particular one, I suppose it reminds me to keep my priorities straight. After all, if Christ were to return this very night, what good would my worrying about future papers be? It’s a reminder to make time for God – no matter how busy I am.

So here it is (according to the Westmoreland MS). Oh, and ignore the “…..” It’s just there to provide the proper indentation.

Holy Sonnet 15

What yf this present were the worlds last night?
…..Looke in my Hart, O Soule, where thou dost dwell
…..The picture of Christ crucifyde and tell
Whether that countenance can thee affright?
Teares in his eyes quench the amazing Light,
…..Blood fills his frowns which from his pierc’d head fell.
…..And can that toung adiudge thee vnto hell
Which prayed forgiuenes for his foes ranck spight?
No, No; but as in myne idolatree
…..I sayd to all my prophane Mistressis
…..Bewty of pity, foulness only is
A Signe of rigor; So I say to thee
…..To wicked Sprights are horrid Shapes assignd,
…..This bewteous forme assures a piteous mind.

The steps of the deceived fall quickly now,
Walking unmarked trails to unmarked ends.
We scurry like rats in a maze.
But rats perceive their goal;
We are but deaf and blind.

“I know the way,” says one,
Tripping on the fallen logs strewn about
As corpses on battle’s field:
The presence of their bodies should indicate life, but there remains only an absence.
These trees appear solid to the eyes,
But their exterior masks a rotten core.
Place no faith on the step there laid.
No sooner is the weight put down than the foothold buckles in.

How may we trust what is unseen when the visibly tangible is but smoke?
Of what may we be truly cognisant?
In what claim true knowledge?
All is uncertain.

We may collect clues,
     Evidence of reality,
          Glimmers of hidden wisdom,

Yet they must be interpreted;
Some guide must lead the way.

Oh, as if Dante we slept and visited were!
But send us not some Virgil.
Rather, Holmes, patron saint of human reason, to pattern our steps.
Send us Father Brown to feel the way out.
Thus aided, may we learn the basest things in ascendancy towards them divine.

Yet humanity seeks no such guide.
The self speaks too loud.
No other’s voice is heard,
Nor do we truly desire another’s voice to hear.
The wisest leaders are rejected
And we are left alone in the forest of ignorance

     Stumbling
          Reaching
               Rushing

Nowhere

If one should chance to fall en route
We may momentarily pause at his grave.
Eulogies of self-presumed wisdom fall from our mouths as though water.
But the spring is polluted.

At length, we may simply grieve our lack of knowledge,
And stop, and cry, “I knew him once!”

Knew him once?

We never knew at all.

February 14th, St. Valentine’s day, has just passed us by. There is nothing specific about Valentine which should lead us to revere his day of remembrance as somehow linked with romanticism. Indeed, it is actually to Geoffrey Chaucer that we may attribute the connection between Valentine’s and love. For in his “Parliament of Fowls,” Chaucer sets the day (for no obvious reason) as the day upon which birds would annually join together in council to choose their mates. “For this was on Seynt Valentynes day, Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make” (309-10).

It is in this poetic reference that the Valentine’s love tradition finds its origins. Chaucer could have chosen any other day (or at least any other spring day; in Chaucer’s time February 14th would have been considered part of the season of spring). But it happens that he chooses St. Valentine’s Day. And so it is in our time.

While in the contemporary era Valentine’s has been degraded to a day of mass commercialism, the concept of true love is one worthy of respect and praise. Paul admonishes us: “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things” (Philippians 4:8). Certainly within these things, we may include the noble pursuit of true love between man and woman.

Thus, to commemorate such love, I here provide some minor sampling of my own feeble poetry on the subject. Within Scripture there are many examples of what true and goodly love can be like. This particular sonnet borrows imagery from the Book of Genesis in its attempt to portray romantic love.

It is not good for man to be alone

The LORD God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18a)

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:23-24)

When God created man, He soon declared,
“It is not good for man to be alone.”
And so, while Adam slept, the LORD prepared
To fashion flesh from flesh, and bone from bone.
God took a rib; a woman He returned,
The perfect match for Adam’s lonely lot.
God willed that they should live in bliss unearned,
To love each other, and to love their God.

And so, my love, I give to thee this poem,
And speak to thee of that which God hath willed
To be the cause for man to leave his home,
To seek his second half; his void be filled.
My rib thou art; be now rejoined to me,
And may we two be one in sanctity.

2007

When that ends the month of Janvier
And Queen of Cities deep in slumber lays
Beneath the hoary ice and biting snow,
And for the weather none would dare to go
From out their sleepy homes, wood-warmed and sealed
‘Till Boreas’ season be repealed,
Then unto me came blessed news so sweet
Which softened all my heart, and so t’was meet
To take up pen and page to frame the day
Within its good and pleasant jolitée.

A message swift as light flew from the west
And settled here within my beating breast,
A word which came from Captain George’s land
Vancouver, city ever old and grand:
“Unto us this day a child is born
Within the rooster’s sounding of the morn.”

A blessing be he to his parents both
And through his life bring peace whe’er he goeth.
One name “strong” and “brave” at every time.
The other “King of All,” his name sublime.
So may he be a valiant monarch true
And emulate the King of All Virtue.

Oh, rear this child in godly living, friends
And when he ages up, his will shall bend
To love the LORD his God with heart and soul
And mind, as well with all his body whole.
My words be on you, father, mother, son,
That God will bless you all. E’en so. Amen.

And so I end my writ. Down pen, I lay.
And thus so sends this blessèd Janvier.

January 30-31st, 2008

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