Joy

The sentiment of joy is

not the absence of sorrow

but the exertion of faith;

the rejection of despair;

born not of plenty but trial

and knowledge of the nature

and character of God, who

though we prove faithless, remains

unremittingly faithful.

1944

Once

men and women forwent sugar and tires,

gas and flour

for the sake of the common cause.

Now

my afternoon is spoiled

by the line at the self-checkout

and intermittent Wi-Fi.

XVI. Perseverance

Walking alone the dusty aisles

among the oft-neglected tomes

one hears a soft melody;

the lullaby of perspective,

of place and transience.

The grass withers and the flower fades.

The story and songs of a thousand fathers and mothers

moldering in vapid succession, each crafted,

in their age, with loving precision,

left now like the oaks

which tower over the emerald-crested

mounds of the ancients

---unmarked and unnoticed

Mayhap we are best

the flickering, waning flame

lest we rest upon our tin-plated towers

singing ballads to our own gaudy magnificance

with gleeful barbarism.

Down tumbles Babel.

and return we again to dust

No. Infirmity and insignificance birth in us a new humility.

The crumbling page only stokes the coals

of eternity languishing beneathe

the gauze and glamour of desire;

the facade of accomplishment.

Better that we sip the bitter dregs of mortality

than learn the terrifying price of vanity.

Better that we as beggars 

thinly sup our days

and close our eyes as grateful debtors.

The grass withers and the flower fades

and kudzu enshrines the tombs of kings.

Though bear we the brunt of this duality,

living with consternation until we sleep

and dream

yearning for final consolation,

the resolution of creation,

our eyes eastward to the crowning dawn.

XV.

Have you, like a child,
cast a leaf into a stream,
only to wonder
where the swift currents take it?
So my voice upon the wind
is swept away
and returns no more.

A Theory on Waterfalls

Why are we transfixed by waterfalls? Falling water provides no benefit beyond the modern inventions of the water-wheel and the hydroelectric dam. What is it then that draws our eye; transfixes our gaze? It is beauty, but why do we assign beauty even to things and moments that provide no basic survival need? We understand the beauty of the hemlocks and the rocks and the rippling water because we intrinsically understand that for something to be beautiful, it must have one who imbued it with beauty; with meaning. We subconsciously acknowledge a creator when we see the world for what it is: beautiful. In those moments of transcendence we assert rightly (if unknowingly) that to create such beauty, such a creator must be eminently more beautiful and creative. If life were merely based on the conditions of survival we would view it in the cold, calculating eye of the materialist. It would be like seeing in black and white. Even the materialist, though, cannot escape beauty. In an attempt to redirect this err, she ascribes it to substitute deities such as Mother Nature or Chance, but the beauty remains, and we cannot deny its pull on our hearts.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

What is man that you are mindful of him,

And the son of man that you care for him?

Solitude

At the first there is a simplicity that vexes my modern mind, later, great grieving, a rending of soul at the leave-taking.

XIII.

Frailty, I am,

bound by flesh and brittle bone:

corruptible, incontinent,

haunted with inconsistency.

These manacles of tissue,

shackles of fluid--

slaves to dark indignities.

When He comes

will He find a mind

no less erring

no less prone

to wavering, infirmity?

Perhaps, in fragile moments found

twixt shadow and anxiety.

But deep,

distant embers,

beneath bitter maladies,

simmer,

like birds snowbound,

clamoring,

aching for exultation,

an end to transiency.