to be explosively healed

This second week of April has been an absolutely crazy one!

I participated in two different prayer rooms, one of which I coordinated. I had an article posted on the 24-7 Ireland website. I handed in two of my four final assignments, one of which was pretty much entirely written between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.

So, I'm a bit behind with my poetry month project. This week's poem is another that I've posted about before:

They say that for years Belfast was backwards

and it's great now to see some progress.

So I guess we can look forward to taking boxes

from the earth. I guess that ambulances

will leave the dying back amidst the rubble

to be explosively healed. Given time,

one hundred thousand particles of glass

will create impossible patterns in the air

before coalescing into the clarity

of a window. Through which, a reassembled head

will look out and admire the shy young man

taking his bomb from the building and driving home.

~ Alan Gillis

This week I've had several conversations about the Troubles with different groups of people. Some who were retelling stories they heard from their parents. Some who grew up in the midst of it all. Some, those who were my age, caught in between the two perspectives.

There was a great program on the BBC this week about the time that Mother Teresa and a few of her Sisters lived in West Belfast. They were there for about 18 months during the height of the troubles, in the early 70s. It's a very different thing to read about horrific things than it is to see them on tv.

Anyway, all of that to say that this poem in some way expresses the kinds of prayers that I've been praying for Belfast. That the Lord would bring healing and set things back to rights again.

whatever a sun will always sing

I love to memorise things, especially poetry. And it's been a long time since I've done so. April is National Poetry Month (in the US anyway) and I usually like to mark it in someway. This year I'm hoping to memorise a new poem, or refresh an old one I've forgotten, each week. The first week is my favourite poem which I've posted here before but for some reason have never memorised. It's by my favourite poet, e.e. cummings. I've had a hard time focusing and concentrating the last few weeks. I'm also hoping that the stillness, repetitiveness, and the focus inherit in memorising will have a positive affect on my brain function in other areas as well. My academic writing and overall sanity could really use the help!

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart

67

when faces called flowers float out of the ground

and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-

but keeping is downward and doubting and never

-it's april(yes,april;my darling) it's spring!

yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly

yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be

(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound

and wishing is having and having is giving-

but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense

-alive;we're alive, dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!

now the pretty birds hover so she and so he

now the littler fish quiver so you and so i

(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found

and having is giving and giving is living-

but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing

-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!

all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky

all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea

(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

-e.e. cummings

april

April was a huge month for our family! It was bookended by new beginnings. First, on April 3rd, my sister Emily married the love-of-her-life, Calvin. It was a beautiful spring day full of joy.

And love.

And dancing.

Then on April 26th, three days before his due-date, William Reid Strite entered the world.

He is beautiful and wonderful and sleepy.

I love him.

Other than that I've been working like crazy. Slowly getting a bit of a tan from all the playing-outside I get to do as part of my "job." I've been knitting and throwing like crazy too. Pictures to come in a separate post. And I've been greatly enjoying the Euro prayer initiative, pictures on a related project I've been working on to come as well.

May is going to be another big month with bookend trips out of state. The first pretty close to home to see Lacy graduate from college in Tennessee and the second to celebrate my Grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary and visit friends in the mid-west.

(Still waiting to hear about college and thus have made no further plans for the fall.)

praise song for the day

On Easter Sunday my church, a non-denominational church planted by an Anglican church in London, shared a service with the congregation with whom we share a building. This church is Greater Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, an African-American church. The theme of the morning was Reconciliation. It was a powerful and emotional experience. Our band combined with the full gospel choir to lead worship. The pastors tag-teamed the sermon. Much was said about the racial issues in the south of America. All I could think of was the sectarian issues in Belfast.

Truly, reconciliation is a universal theme. Each and every human being stands in need of reconciliation. First with God. This is what Easter is all about. "God was in Christ reconciling us to himself." Then with each other. This is the good news of Christianity. That God wants to restore our relationships, all of our relationships.

I was moved during President Obama's inauguration by the poem written and read by Elizabeth Alexander, Praise Song for the Day. I purchased a copy of it recently. Now seems a fitting time to share it:

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eye or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors upon our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other with words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

an ambitious project

Tomorrow is April 1st. April fools day. Also the first day of National Poetry Month. I have decided that this year I'm going to try and work my way through 1,000 Years of Irish Poetry ~ The Gaelic and Anglo-Irish Poets from Pagan Times to the Present. Present in this case is used loosely as the book was compiled in 1947. Wish me luck!

see what i've done here?

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of this blog, much to the chagrin of my myspace blog which has seen very little posting since I started this baby up. Interestingly, my very first post was a response to a booklet I had just read called "What Christian's Should Know About Reconciliation." Ironic because it fits right in with the mission training course I was on last week. Which is what this picture is from.

I actually got on here to post the last of my April poems. If you haven't noticed (because I didn't say anything about it) I've posted a poem every week for the month of April. I always do poetic things in April because at home in America, April is National Poetry Month. And that makes me really happy. I'm not sure what poem I will choose today yet, every other week I've known, but today's poem will be chosen at random from "More Comic & Curious Verse" which is a part of The Penguin Poets and has a fabuloso, modern, 1950s cover. And the winner is.... (well I should say the winners are [from Translations from the Ish])

MANUFACTURED EVIDENCE

Late in life,
Wishing to provide himself with a lurid past,
He had his chest tattooed with
Various
Regrettable
Designs

SOUVENIR

‘She was’, said the young man, sniffing,
‘The most beautiful girl
I ever saw.
For two minutes
I stood beside her
In a Tube lift.
I shall never see her again.
She gave me this cold.’

He sneezed with gloomy satisfaction,
And I noticed
That he had chosen to sit in a draught.

THOUGHTS ON A SILENT AUDIENCE

I wish the people
Who think this comedian funny
(And numbers of them
Look the sort who might)
Would muster the energy to laugh,
And so allow me
To feel superior in comfort.

RICHARD MALLETT

for lacy

Because I'm not feeling especially clever or creative right now... missing you too much for that(thanks for shattering me with your words) ... here is one of our favorite poems to tell you how I feel about you until I can compose myself enough to try and express it myself:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-e.e. cummings

I can hear your voice

whispering

As the sea roars

and splashes all around me

I can feel your soft

caress

As the sun warms my back

and the wind teases my hair

The cool, clear water

trapped

Between the rocks

Mirrors my smile

as you smile through the clouds

My soul is at rest in the

thundering

The sea-spray

sprinkles me with joy

I love it here

Because

I can hear you

seamus heaney seemed appropriate

since I'm heading to Belfast today...

At Ardboe Point

Right along the lough shore
A smoke of flies
Drifts thick in the sunset.

They come shattering daintily
Against the windscreen,
The grill and bonnet whisper

At their million collisions:
It is to drive through
A hail of fine chaff.

Yet we leave no clear wake
For they open and close on us
As the air opens and closes.

Tonight when we put out our light
To kiss between the sheets
Their just audible siren will go

Outside the window,
Their invisible veil
Weakening the moonlight still further,

And the walls will carry a rash
Of them, a green pollen.
They’ll have infiltrated our clothes by morning.

If you put one under a lens
You’d be looking at a pumping body
With such outsize beaters for wings

That this visitation would seem
More drastic than Pharaoh’s
I’m told their mosquitoes

But I’d need forests and swamps
To believe it
For these are our innocent, shuttling

Choirs, dying through
Their own live empyrean, troublesome only
As the last veil on a dancer.

turtle soup

A little nonsense for this foolish first day of April:

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau-ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau-ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo-oop of the e-e-evening,
Beautiful, Beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau-ootiful Soup!
Beau-ootiful Soup!
Soo-oop of the e-e-evening,
Beautiful, beauti-FUL SOUP!
-Lewis Carroll

And, I would be very happy to sing it for you next time I see you! (My own tune and everything)