Poetry in Ordinary Time: Ellen Bass

Another 'thank you' to Parker Palmer for sharing this poem...a soothing balm for those of us feeling that indeed, "...it is a hard time to be human"...from Ellen Bass.


The World Has Need of You

"everything here
 seems to need us" - Rainer Maria Rilke

I can hardly imagine it,
As I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arm swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It's a hard time to be human.  We know too much
and too little.  Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs?  The gulls?
If you've managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn't care.
But when Newton's apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple.

 

- Ellen Bass from her book, Like a Beggar, Copper Canyon Press, 2014

You can listen to Garrison Keillor read this poem aloud on the June 25, 2016 edition of The Writer's Almanac.  (Please note that the poem comes at the end of the podcast.)

Did They See it Coming?

This morning I prepared the Order of Service for next Sunday, August 6.  That day we mark the Feast of the Transfiguration.  That got me thinking...

The Transfiguration
Raphael - ca. 1520

Over 2,000 years out, this story from Scripture may be very familiar to those of us with the habit of regular church attendance, who've sat through years of lectionary readings, hearing it repeated on a regular cycle -- perhaps even studied it in a Bible Study or theology class.

But have any of us ever stopped to think about the reality of what happened in that "mountain-top experience"?  I'm betting those disciples never saw that coming!

For reflection this week I offer up this sonnet by Rev. Malcom Guite from his book, Sounding the Seasons (Canterbury Press, 2012)...

Transfiguration

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’

On that one mountain where all moments meet,

The daily veil that covers the sublime

In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.

There were no angels full of eyes and wings

Just living glory full of truth and grace.

The Love that dances at the heart of things

Shone out upon us from a human face

And to that light the light in us leaped up,

We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,

A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope

Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.

Nor can this this blackened sky, this darkened scar

Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.

If you wish, you can listen to Rev. Guite read this aloud HERE -- an invitation to light a candle, sit quietly, close your eyes and let the Spirit get under your 'tender skin'...