In memoriam, Jeffrey H. Richards
The bulbs that wintered in the ground
have ripened their hoard of secrets:
all is color, ruinous color, overpowering
scent. Balm grows in soil that has stained
the gardener’s hands, sweetened the tea
his wife must have brought sometimes
for him to drink. Cerulean, croons the warbler
whose shadow crosses the yard; flame orange,
hibiscus, mauve, lime— And for all this,
nothing is ever spent.* In the cool afternoon
his friends gather in a courtyard
to remember his days. They sing a hymn
about the apple tree in a seed, the flower
in the bud. Between the church and town,
long-legged birds wade in river water. So much
like them, we’ve moved against the current,
shielded our eyes against the sun, straining to read
the letters scripted by some hand on the sides
of boats rocking gently in the pier.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
* from “God’s Grandeur” by G.M. Hopkins
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Always a Story
- Landscape with Sudden Rain, Wet Blooms, and a Van Eyck Painting
- Letter to Implacable Things
- Landscape, with Cave and Lovers
- Miniatures
- Letter to Self, Somewhere Other than Here
- Ghazal with a Few Variations
- Letter to Silence
- Landscape, with Returning Things
- Postcard to Grey
- Not Yet There
- Letter to the Street Where I Grew Up (City Camp Alley, Baguio City)
- Between
- Parable of Sound
- Letter to Providence
- Glint
- The Beloved Asks
- Letter to Longing
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Twenty Questions
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Interlude
- Villanelle of the Red Maple
- Letter to Leaving or Staying
- Salutation
- Letter to Love
- Letter to Fortune
- Territories
- Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe
- Dear season of hesitant but clearing light,
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Singing Bowl
- [temporarily removed by author]
- Risen
- Refrain
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Dear heart, I take up my tasks again:
- Landscape as Elegy for the Unspent
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Risk
- Vocalise
- Tremolo
- Interior Landscape, with Roman Shades and Lovers
- Bird Looking One Way, Then Another
- Gypsy Heart
- Like the Warbler
- Landscape with Carillon
- Letter to Ardor
- Landscape, with Salt and Rain at Dawn
- Marks
- Landscape, with Sunlight and Bits of Clay
- Slaying the Beast
- Measures
- In a Hotel Lobby, near Midnight
- Landscape with Shades of Red
- Between the Acts
- Letter to Duty
- Letter to Nostalgia
- You
- Song of Work
- Balm
- Landscape, with Wind and Tulip Tree
- From the Leaves of the Night Notebook
- Letter to What Must be Borne
- Redolence
- Letter to Myself, Reading a Letter
- Night-leaf Tarot
- Trauermantel
- Foretelling
- Aubade, with Sparrow
- Reverie
- Mineral Song
- Layers
- Prayer
- Proof
Between the church and town,/ long-legged birds wade in river water. So much/ like them, we’ve moved against the current…
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
CONTRA MUNDUM
Like silt at the bottom of creek boulders,
wading against the current must be residue
of an apostasy proclaimed, a paradise lost
somewhere East of Eden. But it was good.
There would be toil and a struggle for love,
and upon his progeny an edict of suffering
pain at the birth of all begotten children.
But does this act not bring exquisite joy?
What price life if it were merely a wading
through the gentle streams of a lotus land?
Why flaunt dominion over all that grows
or dies for these where nature is never spent?*
Let me shield my heart, hearth, and home
With all the strength and defiance I can hold.
—Albert B. Casuga
06-06-11
* Hopkins