My People and Watching

I read a beautiful children's book with photographs illustrating the Langston Hughes poem, "My People."

My People

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Langston Hughes

I don't know the best way to post information on it, but here is a link: My People
It's worth looking for in a local library or bookstore.


Here's another of mine.


Watching
1998

I’m watching my life, backwards and forwards,
To see where you’ve fit—where you fit—where you’ll fit.
Why am I watching? You didn’t ask?
So I won’t tell you—there’s no way I could.

Yet I watch every move, every word, every thought,
Like I sometimes watch swallows, or seagulls, or flowers,
Or sunsets, to see what might surprise me
And make me stop, and say, “Oh."

Jonathan Edwards and another poem

I just read a nice, short book about Jonathan Edwards. I still think some beliefs he considered very important are crazy, but I'm convinced he was a very good, thoughtful man who sought to do God's will and help others do the same. This is a short quote from him:

We make a distinction between the things that we know by reason, and things we know by revelation. But alas we scarce know what we say: we know not what we should have known . . . had it not been for revelation. . . . Many of the principles of morality and religion that we have always been brought up in the knowledge of, appear so rational that we are ready to think we could have found ‘em out by our own natural reason. . . .

Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, in The Great Awakening, ed. C. C. Goen, WJE, vol. 4 (1972), p. 240, in Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word, Douglas A. Sweeney, InterVarsity Press (2009), p. 92.


I suppose a mission poem is appropriate with the above quote, since Jonathan Edwards was perhaps the most influential theologian in creating the culture among Evangelical Christians (and some other major groups) of preaching the Word to the whole world. I wrote this for a woman I worked with in Italy for several months. We were a few months from going home, and she was feeling down about her accomplishments. I'm sure the Italian translation isn't perfect, but it was the best I could do, and I'm not better at it now.

Sorella Mia
1997

A friendly life comes to a sprawling town—
A town that’s made of metal, rock, and glass,
Where crumbling streets and walls can be replaced,
And no one ever misses just a stone.
A lovely friend comes to a living heart—
A soul that’s made of feeling, blood, and flesh,
Which makes of all an undivided mesh—
Imperfect if without its smallest part.
The life may leave the city, and her mind
May think, for all she’s tried, that she bereaves
The town of nothing from her soft effect,
And when the friend will leave the heart behind,
She’ll think her touch, as with the town, she leaves
Unfelt, but truly years will not forget.

Una vita simpatica viene a una crescente citta’—
Una citta’ fatta di metalo, pietre, e vetri
Dove strade e muri crollanti possono essere rifatti
Ed a nessuno manchera’ un solo sasso.
Una bella amica viene a un vivo cuore—
Una anima fatta di sentimento, sangue, e carne,
La cui fa di tutto una rete indivisa—
Imperfetta se e’ senza la minima parte.
La vita potrebbe lasciare la citta’, e sua mente
Potrebbe pensare, malgrado tutto cio’ che lei avesse fatto, che spoglia
La citta’ di niente dal suo gentile effetto,
E quando l’amica lasciera’ in dietro il cuore
Pensera’, cosi’ come con la citta’, di avere lasciato il suo tocco
Inosservato, ma in verita’ gli anni non potranno dimenticarlo.

Two Tributes

I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In Time’s great periods shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days;
I know how all the Muse’s heavenly lays,
With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,
And that nought lighter is than airy praise;
I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
To which one morn both birth an death affords;
That love a jarring is of mind’s accords,
Where sense and will invassal reason’s power:
   Know what I list, this all can not me move,
   But that, O me! I both must write and love.

        William Drummond of Hawthornden 1585-1649



Grandpa
1997

I will not marvel more at spiring mount
Than at the flowering stem that God has grown,
Nor oceans strangest beauties will I count
More grand than common truths that God has shown.

I will not love him more who with his wealth
Will build an edifice unto his god
Than him who in his love will spend his health
To grow a passing flower for his God.


William Drummond of Hawthornden wrote this poem, and apparently most
of his poems, after the woman he loved died young. I feel like I can relate to his sentiment that, even though everything falls apart in this mortal life, he can't help loving and creating. I wrote mine while on my mission after hearing of my grandpa's death. He was a botanist, and a dedicated gardener until his death, even when it took him most of the day just to get out to the garden and back in for meals.

Two Poems by Me and Ed

It's been a while, so you get one of mine and one from Edmund Spenser. It's fitting that I post some religious sonnets, since this next group of my poems is from when I was a missionary in northern Italy.

Jonni
1996

And there is bounteous peace across the way
In trees where evening light is still and gray.
The old stone wall, long work of hands, still stands
With drapes of hanging ivy’s greening strands.
Above the wall dead pines mix well with live,
And showing soft their pink, the roses thrive
And break the hold of green and brown and night
And say, "Here’s peace, here’s constant, living light.”
The cobblestones below, that make the street,
Support a simple way for moving feet
To pass from here to there, but feet don’t move.
The man says, “All is good,” yet searches love.
He only sees the cars that pass and honk—
No vision for the trunk of tree, but trunk
Of car as “friends” drive by, not headed for
The peace, but to and fro outside his door.
“My friends pass by, and all is good. That peace
Is far. It’s peaceful here with all the noise.
All is good. The peace is here for me,
And look, there’s almost no one by the Tree.
I’d be alone with all the distant growth.
My God’s companionship’s not near enough."


Edmund Spenser 1552-1599

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin,
May live forever in felicity:
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love thee for the same again;
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
May love with one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought,
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

I think of the beauties . . .

Time to post one of my poems. I think I'll start chronologically with what I consider the first good poem I wrote. I'm not going to explain them because they are richer if I don't. If I feel like editing them now, I will. I'd love to know what you think. Maybe it will inspire me to start writing again.

I think of the beauties . . .
1995

Have you felt leaves of a fall maple tree
Shed on your face clean, fragrant rain?
Have you looked into the eyes of beauty
And seen a friend, and let thought sustain
A hope that a thought might quietly start
Within her soul and draw her near?
Have your words flown with your heart
Into the air where no one will hear?
I think of the beauties our lives briefly hold—
White on white clouds pierced by mountainous peak,
The earth’s welcome brown from which seedlings unfold—
Then one final beauty enters my mind,
For I have watched eyes hear me speak
And seen in their softness a heart that is kind.