a song not to shoot

A second big plane from Malaysia went down,

A third Gaza war in less than ten years,

Malala’s in Africa to find those schoolgirls,

Charybdis has centered a stake in our world,

and what a wild world it’s been.

Arguably Atticus Finch shouldn’t have gifted

his kids what they wanted for Christmas:

air-rifles to shoot at tin cans (fair game)

and bluejays (ok, if less so). But this know:

“it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Mimus polyglottos can echo any birdsong,

even the bluejay’s, if so inclined, though why

would one summon the whims of a child

with an air-rifle? Better to imitate angels,

or lay low for a season or two.

We’ve learned a few lessons from Babel, at

least how to translate what doesn’t make sense;

We’re still prone to mock another’s beliefs

and put them to memes out of hand and sight

while Atticus peaceably fights.

We Will Draw Near

This is inspired, at least in part, by brother Josh's persistent challenge to us all to get out another "S2L2A&A" list: songs to listed to again and again.  I don't have a full list together for this year yet, but I think I'd like to start it with a favorite song from Kirsten's Jubilate Choir days, music that I still like to turn to now and again, eight years later.  The song is Adiemus by Karl Jenkins, the lead part of a full album and the premise for a beautiful choral concert called Songs of Sanctuary.  What makes Jenkins work especially unique is that it's all done in a pseudo-Latin with no specific meaning.  The first lines, for instance, are:

Ari adiemus late
Ari adiemus da
Ari a enatus late adua.

It turns out the title can be roughly translated as "We will draw near" in Latin, but Jenkins claimed not to know this.  Anyway, it's musically rich, solemn, dramatic, full of crescendo and sanctuary but also, at least for me all these years, intriguing in how it seems to beg for more meaning.  So this year I finally decided to give the song my own words.  In the process, arbitrarily or not, I have turned to the well known "bless you keep you" benediction, enhanced with one  of my favorite words, Immanuel, a word worth repeating, again and again.  And yes, the descant remains: we will draw near.


We Will Draw Near
An interpretation of Karl Jenkins' Adiemus

Brother, may the Lord be with you
Like a shepherd in the field
Giving you the meaning of Immanuel.
May that mean the whole world to you,
God's world ever given to you,
Blessing you no matter where you are.

Sister, may a world of peace be
With you everywhere you go,
Everywhere the meaning of Immanuel.
May it mean that God will hold you
Like a mother holds her child who
Looks into the eyes of loving care.

Refrain:
And may God's face shine upon you
With an everlasting smile,
Giving you the meaning of Immanuel.
May you know that God is with you everywhere.
(We will draw near.)
May you know that God is with you everywhere.
(We will draw near.)
Immanuel! 
Immanuel!

(Repeat Refrain)

Child, may the grace of God be
Something you will come to know
Living in the meaning of Immanuel.
As you wander through the fold and
Grow beyond the mother's hold, may
You still know you are a child of God.

(Repeat Refrain)

May the hands of the father bless you.

(Immanuel!)

May the arms of the mother keep you.

(Immanuel!)

May the face of God shine on you.

(Immanuel!)

May the grace of the Lord go with you.

(Immanuel!)

May the peace of the world be in you.

(Immanuel!)

May you know God is always with you.

Immanuel!

Immanuel!

On a Vienna tram

Heaving, the mid-life woman in a wheelchair

had evidently heard some horrific news,

and the stolid man sitting straight behind

must have been the purveyor of such blues.

‘Divorce’ he may have whispered, or ‘be gone’:

their final ride from Ottakring, a journey

many years too long or scarcely just begun.

The wheels below her changed into a gurney—

maybe so: a prognosis of stage five

that only sunk in now and in a tram

familiar, blocks away from CAT scans, teams

of doctors, chaplains, those who give a damn…

At Volkstheatre, someone else stepped on

and stretched her neck to ask what she could do:

‘You’re stranded? Oh, I see you’re with that man—’

He nodded not, as the woman sobbed anew

and reached her hand to touch his stony face.

He never flinched but stared outside and then

perhaps at me—blinded not by tears, he

could not view the spectacle they’d been.

I’d taught that day Szymborska’s poem: ‘for me

the true tragedy begins with Act Six.’

The actors play their different parts and greet

the devastated world with smiles that fix

relations, households, rubble from the past.

They’ll ruin again tomorrow; for now, well,

let the evening rest. I gotta catch my tram,

lest my lady (or my man) gives me hell.

Reluctantly, I disembarked and left

the couple to their corner in the tram;

the city opened up, I walked my part

and mouthed a prayer for those who give a damn.

from Stella, collector of frogs

Fully rely on God:  that’s surely said, because when we

Rely on God, fully, we realize such ponderous provisions.

On God rely fully—whether croaking, spawning or sleeping.

God, fully rely on amphibious inklings to dive in in due season.

Reasons to Run

I never needed any reason to run,

not when the neighbor’s hogs burst the fence

and surrounded our home. As a lone

electron I coursed to consider them all;

Dad warned me in, then joined my valence,

less to protect than to share in the run.

When summers kindled all kinds of fire,

I sought out cool springs like a Jesus bug,

skimming the surface of things, I circled

the shoals of my undisclosed road

and ran through the waves with a shrug,

plumbing the depth of dreams on fire.

Loves here and now made sustenance then

and logging the miles meant less in the end

than legging them as I could. I needed

no reason to run, no medals from races,

no personal bests, no college letters to send,

no fleeing from cops or crooks. But then

my father died, and my step-father too.

My brother got cancer and though he came

through, my inchoate teaching of Hamlet

would never resort to by-the-book notes.

The twenty-third psalm is one and the same:

a valley, still waters, a chapel to run to…

God knows each story veers from the rest

and cancers return in ways no one would think.

Five miles in Lake Forest meant everything,

pacing the weeks and the years gone by.

Nature ensures water striders don’t sink;

they run, ruminate, and relish the rest.

sand to stone

        in media res

Like Kino, none of us

pined to find this pearl,

the Pearl of the World,

the pearl to pay bills for

some scorpion’s sting,

Nod’s scourge of nature.

Cicadae of cancer returns

to my brother’s brain.

As was the case a quarter

century past, the bolus

lays above the stem,

the size of Kino’s pearl.

What irritant decides to

roost again inside my

brother’s head? What gel

turns gem-like to circle

’round the sore? Who

governs such design?

Who fathoms such store?

Who gathers who frames

into stanzas, who blathers

in signs without sense

who follows who’d rather

resign from it all……

At my brother’s bedside

I look into his eyes and

see in each an different

kind of pearl: a Peter

sand-to-stone, a faith

that pulls him through.

So, in media res, spare

a prayer for Kino, Juana,

lepers they defied to be.

Our brother transcends

such praline dreams.

He prays instead for thee.

The Fifth Stage Speaking to the Fourth Stage

I think I speak for everyone in noting how the Symposia, decidedly plural, have boosted our spirits repeatedly over the years, and today I speak for one of you, to another and to you all with three ways to put this forum to some well timed optimistic use.

First, speaking for one of you, I have another silly poem.  Josh directly commissioned this one when he essentially spoke the first few lines of the poem and inspired my retort of “learning to walk is what young people do,” then told me I should make a poem out of that. So I did, leaning very much on and away from As You Like It.

Second, I encourage a more profound poem from Dan, based on a germ he was tossing around a couple of days ago, relating Steinbeck’s The Pearl to what Josh has been going through.  Take more time at this than my Stages poem, Dan, I think this could be a beautiful one.  And may I also suggest for you: lean on but also away, to where your own thoughts are.

And finally, speaking to you all, at Josh’s request: let’s revive the “Songs you can play over and over again” project.  Josh intended this to be not a comparative argument, because there is no right or wrong, but a celebration of each symposian’s go-to playlist.  He also meant this to be revisited every year or so, to keep our individual and mutual spirits going.  So, for the few of you who have not yet contributed, now is the time!  And for those of you like me who thought they had already made the definitive list, think again! And repeat tracks if you want, or take from other people’s list if you must, but share!

Here is my poem.

The Fifth Stage (feeling like the Sixth Stage)
Speaking to the Fourth Stage (reminding him of what he learned in the Second Stage)

“I feel so old, having to be
helped with walking short distances,
the world ever holding my hand
and the room being a constant adventure.”

Old? I’m your older brother; let me be
the voice of wisdom through childish treble
with my pant legs rolled up: dignity
be damned, we walk as we are able.

You are a soldier, reminding me
even now like a bearded pard
of what you’ve told me repeatedly
over the years and across the ages,

“Every day is a gift,
and we are all survivors.”

Mom's Journal Entry, June 18, 2014

Before all the happenings of this week, Mom (and Anne, and Kirsten, and Jean Paul Sartre) had invited us to this conversation.  So, from Mom's emailed journal entry, with her permission:

Whole bunch of blessings to report, and I've just gotten as far as the hymnal this morning.  Anne's blog yesterday, on the Sartre phrase which she gifted to Kirsten for her dorm room, "Hell is other people", we struggle to understand.  For one thing, that came on the very day - yesterday - when I knew that "HEAVEN was other people."  I was so profoundly blest by the folks I delivered meals to.  Several long visits - Jeanette, Lolly, Alan.  Dick, at breakfast, surmised that maybe it means "other people are judgment."  (They words they say or refrain from saying?)  I know existentialism has something to do with "you are how you act".  Where words come into that I don't know.  We are a family exulting in the joy, the power, the flavor, the turn, of WORDS.  And then I happen upon a delightful hymn, "As Rain from the Clouds".  (It's raining - lightning and thundering - right now, awesome, breathtaking to watch by our deck window.)

"As rain from the clouds will your WORD come to earth, as snow from the heavens refreshing the land.."  (and we thought it was a terrible winter!).. "then soften our soil that the good seed may grow, and ripen rich fruit to return to your hand.  We praise you, our God, for the dew (vs. 2 the seed, vs. 3 the light) of your WORD; we thank you, good gardn'er for your tender toil.  We bless you, best farmer, for hundredfold yield, for harvest of grace in our once-barren soil."  Word.  Word made flesh,  Dwelling in us.  "One little word shall triumph."

Oh yes, I'm confused.  Need more study.  But already feel so rich.  Besides that, leg is healing, I walk almost normally.

Oh!  Psalm 105:1  "Give thanks to the Lord!  Call upon His name; make know his DEEDS among the peoples!...  Talk of all His wondrous works!"  There's more - verse 8, "He remembers His covenant forever, the WORD which He commanded for a 1000 generations."  And then today's Proverb, 4: 20-22  "My son, give attention to my WORDS; . .  for they are life to those who find them."

Since journalling is largely stream-of-consciousness, you get what you get.  But I look forward to dialogue for my untutored mind.  Love you all, Mom

Another Free Sonnet: Words to Hang on the Dormroom Wall.

Hell is other people — 
Heaven is the presence of God.

Hell is a closed room — 
Heaven is an open field.

Hell is being forever judged — 
Heaven is being accepted.

Hell is seeing ourselves as others see us — 
Heaven is putting ourselves aside.


Hell is the dark glass of human mirrors — 
Heaven is seeing face to face.

Hell is the parsing of pimples — 
Heaven is the end of imperfections.

Hell is inescapable reflections — 
Heaven is the lark flying free.

Hell refuses to look at loveliness —
Heaven is knowing love.


Hell is the end of hope and the continuation of fear — 
Heaven is all we hope for and the end of all we fear.

Hell is remaining alive but being forever dead — 
Heaven is being born anew, having defeated death.

Hell is a faithless existentialism — 
Heaven is a higher existence.

Hell is existing in the company of absentees — 
Heaven is living in the presence of God.


Hell is a room with no exit.
Heaven is a doorway and the will to walk through it.

Hell is here and now, for those who live it — 
Heaven is here and now, for those who believe it.

Sonnet #44

Picking up where we once left off,
     as though the last twenty five years
     weren’t amazingly full of rich, rich stories,
every season a lifetime unto itself,
     every hour brimming with possibilities
—I could tell you a hundred of them,
     a thousand if you had the time— 
but where were we? Twenty five years ago,
before we set off on our unexpected
     adventures, and who were we then,
before the news... You were twelve,
     you were twenty two, I was twenty six,
and you: you were still in your teens,
not even thinking of all the world had
     in store for you, even in the whisper of
     a day. But rest now. We’ll talk more tomorrow.

—I like all those stories of in-between,
I want to hold on to them, making sure
     they don’t slip away or change into something
unrecognizable, forgettable. And you,
     encouraging me with your eyes, your smile,
     could almost make me forget the bookends.
Remember when? I could muster
     a thousand smiles and turn around
     to look at them a hundred times more:
Life, after all, is all about reliving,
and where we were once, and where
     we are now, is only about forgiving.

Not for Naught

The menagerie is not for naught, as

Bronko, coming to my aid tonight—

a broken soul in need of something

—satisfied despite. He’d heard the

arguing, knew the limits of the fight

and waited for the chance at salving:

a tongue on open knee I’d otherwise

rebuke, but not this overheated night.

He vied to stay where I was working

and while I prodded him away, a may-

fly (now in June) was taking flight

from whatever spot it had in hiding

to the upstart interest of the dog.

The mayfly, prone to show the blight

of its existence, bounced in ping

pong leaps upon the land-seal’s nose

and inevitably, of course, into his bite.

Bronko, for his part, spit up the thing

and so I clambered up to sweep the scene,

pinch the writhing weakling and invite

the nearby turtles—sort of slumbering

—to finish off what didn’t suit the dog.

They let the insect float about its plight

around their metric pond, never sinking

yet also never thinking of a possible

reprieve. In artificial current it might

have swirled beyond its own surviving:

fancy that! I counted rounds and hoped

it would defy the odds—earn the right

to live miraculous release, what any being

would pray to see. “As flies to wanton

boys are we to th’ gods;” for who’s contrite

in food and general chains of suffering?

Bronko’s long since lost the paltry plot,

and I should follow in his lead and insight,

bid all creatures a quietude of evening.

The world turned June

Dear Symposians, it was so good to have family here this spring--Lena in early March, and Mom, Dick, Greg and Lola here in late May. Prague is famous for its 'spring', unfortunately hampered by an historical misnomer, as 1968 is infamous for its Prague 'fall' (the August 20th invasion of Warsaw Pact watchdogs). History aside, it is lovely here as I write and make the following request:

Please take a look at this draft for my annual contribution to our leave-taking party of colleagues, numbering ten this year. I have a couple imperatives in mind as I draft: a) keep an animal in bay, for better or worse--this time, the hedgehog that may represent Czech Republic better than a nonsensical lion national emblem, or ISP better than its mascot falcon, hijacked from the 'Sokol' movement of Masaryk's First Republic; and b) honor the leave-taking event without pronouncing by 'eulogy' or 'roast' any particulars of a person, as biographical instances--times ten individuals--is a nightmarish matrix.

We all know campsites--from boundary waters to Camp Grow--and we all have ways of weighing in. Add to that any sense of 'ethics', as my working title is 'Hedgehog Ethics':

to Kathleen, Peter, Dianne, Stephen, Anke, Melissa, Shelley, Loic, John, Caroline

An adage of the ages:

leave a campsite cleaner than it was

then, in incremental stages,

campsites cleanse ourselves.

Here, the hedgehogs hold the night—

what presence they assume is barely known

to those who grope in daylight;

they leave well enough alone

and then tidy up the floor.

We wake to worlds unseemly fresh and

so… we sleepwalk out the door

and trample hedgehog land.

But then again, they wait to

trample what we’ve paved—the earth

is rounded with such residue,

with throes of death and birth

travail, dreaming in between.

A curious thing a hedgehog does to wile

away its time: a ‘self-anoint’ routine

to smell like other selves awhile,

to sleep that off and venture

out again. Camouflage, the experts say,

and let them think they’re sure.

Would you anoint yourself today?

We’ve seen good friends and stewards

come and go. To name them now would

satisfy some chronicle, but few words

satisfy their goal for good:

they leave the campsite clean. Scouts

who tread itinerant tracks will know (if not

acknowledge) what it means to grout

the natural foundations, what

they found and what they, too,

will leave again anew. We keep the campsite

clean. We learn from hedgehogs who

glean in kind from us—we might

talk mutual shop some day. Now,

we batten down the hatches, steady selves

for storms unseen, with forecasts how

the fort is stronger than it was.

still waters do run deep

and this symposium is a shepherd's keep! I don't care how many or few look in, but I love that we can post here, comment--check those, and click to make your own, look back at archived stuff and become inspired anew. It's Mother's Day today, and I loved how Kevin Durant made use of his own symposium--the NBA and all its fans--to pass his accolades along, compelling his mom Wanda to make a modest acceptance speech of her own. She nourished her kids on a kind of mush we enjoyed in unincorporated Des Plaines--I long for that dish sometimes--and prayed for their safety, salvation, success, counting not the odds against. Happy Mother's Day, Mom--you are our MVP!

Möbius strips

Mother’s Day, Oklahomas everywhere

Wanda said

a mother’s dream is

seeing to her kid’s each own

Kevin spread

his mother’s word in

bringing the Podoloff home

and giving

it to Mom—Wanda

said a mother’s dream is be-

ing happy

—even when alone—

to oust obstructions and free

her each kid’s

doubts that happiness

cannot be found. Wanda said

Kevin’s dream

indeed is hers, bless

all the prayers preceding bed

bless brothers

sisters, family pets

bless obstructions as they come

Möbius strips

may link chainlike and

dreams so loved are never done

Two Hours on the Pecatonica

One mile down a winding river,
full of overhanging strains
and random estimates, the father
listens as his son complains,
“I’m never doing this again.
The water’s cold, the waves are high,
The stretch we’re on is longer than
you promised. Everything’s a lie!”

Two miles down a rending river,
with the surface rippling
less from flow than from the weather
blowing six weeks into spring,
now the boy turns his teen anger
everywhere at once, turns mad
to the boats and to the river,
to Wisconsin, to his dad.

Three miles down a bending river
making slow turns south and east
through rural hills and rustic pastures,
answering a prayer for peace,
and in time the boy turns quiet,
sullen still but out of breath,
paddling the waves in silence
having beat the horse to death.

Four miles down a wending river,
later in the afternoon
the sun comes out from undercover
like a mouse predicting June
and the boy from broken shadows
finds the words he hadn’t said
and the father smiles at the 
son, as two boats forge ahead.

Five miles down a wand’ring river
muddy shores turn into rocky
bluffs that would defy the river’s
native title, what the Sauk
had called wet earth, but for the moment
man and boy behold the banks
that rise above them as they lumber
onward with unspoken thanks.

Six miles down a wondrous river
four deer running up the bluff,
a turkey flushing into flight,
an eagle soaring just above,
and then the son: “When this is over
and we bring our kayaks home
I guess you’re gonna chew me out for
all the things I’ve said and done.”

Seven miles down the river
a snapping turtle almost bites
the passing paddle, then the father:
“No, son, everything’s all right.
I will be glad when this is over,
proud of you and thrilled that we
could have this afternoon together,
happy you were here with me.”

Eight miles down a winsome river
on a stretch we’ve made our own,
from Blanchardville to Thunder Bridge,
but there’s an island halfway down,
and there’s a goose nest on the island,
and all along the muddy banks
the world is fishing, farming, hunting,
living with unspoken thanks.

The Point of Life

Before the month of Easter ends, I wanted to get in one more post, so I’m predating this one by a half dozen hours.  I wanted to stay in April for Easter’s sake but also to commemorate yet another great author who died this month: Peter Matthiessen, the only writer to have won the National Book Award in both fiction and non-fiction categories.  In fact, with his first winner, The Snow Leopard, he won the award twice, once in 1979 for the brief lived category “Contemporary Thought” and then in 1980 for general nonfiction.  The Snow Leopard is a wonderful travel journal about a layman explorer trying to beat the onset of a Nepalese winter in search of the rarest of wild animals, all the while freshly grieving the loss of his wife to cancer.  Then in 2008, joining only two other three-time writers (Saul Bellow and nonfiction writer Lewis Thomas) he won the fiction award for Shadow Country, a uniquely styled murder mystery set in the early 20th century Everglades.  This was my introduction to Matthiessen, and I liked the book so much I read it twice, hardly deterred by its 900 page length.  He lived a full life, into his eighties, and then this year, a week before his last book was to be published, he succumbed to cancer.  I am now in the middle of his last book, In Paradise, a fictional work that had started as another autobiographical travelogue about an odd assortment of pilgrims to Auschwitz — Jews, Buddhists, Christians; Germans, Poles, Americans; a scoffer of the whole idea of pilgrims to Auschwitz, an atheistic scholar researching a weary subject, a man in search of his roots — who have gathered for a weeklong meditation retreat.

About 40 pages into the book (and I’m not that much further as I write this) there is a compelling quote: “The point of life is to help others through it – who said that?”  This, as it happens, parallels my recent very novice study of Kierkegaard’s three modes of life: the aesthetic, the ethical and the spiritual, and also my recent required advocacy (called on to write a report for our church’s annual congregational meeting) for social ministry.  All of which, combined with a bible verse (Luke 23:43), prompted this work-in-progress poem, which I will title with the lead of the same quote from Matthiessen:


The Point Of Life

1 looks to the stars
turns to the east
leans on the powers
of reason & truth.
1 pays for the view
waits for the feast
contemplates beauty
& holds on to youth.
1 bows to the throne
flees from the beast
stands off alone
while one sets up
a booth.
1 searches within
struggles for peace
sees time begin
to grow long
in the tooth.
1 takes up the cross
suffers the sentence
‘s less where he is now
than where he
is going.
1 ‘s done what he’s done
comes to his senses
turns to the one
hanging next to him,
knowing
1 speaks of a presence
lives for today
lifts up the other
and shows him
the way.




And now I can continue on to May.

Kepler's Constellations

     on Josef’s acceptance to gymnasium

Phenomenal, it might be said, for the

phenomenological.  Tycho Brahe

observed the orbits after Copernicus

eccentricized the earth. “The sun

sets without setting at all”, a modern

Polish poet would conclude. And

Kepler, charting what he could, upset

the expectations even more. The

orbits didn’t synch, didn’t course the

way a stargazer might think, and

thus a point elliptical had to enter in.

        We travel such roads all the time

        in efforts to get where we want to go

        or what we wish to see: a setting

        sun, a dawning one, days beyond our

        dreams. Occasionally we ante up

        and amble to the dark unknown. God

        knows what’s there—angler fish,

        Lucifer and machinations all our own

        —heaven help us when we fly to

        others we know not of…. Heaven help

        us anyway: we sojourn unaware.

Joe now goes to survey stars celestial

and earthbound. He’ll enter halls

of Jan Kepler Gymnasium and supply

his share of what’s been supplied

by Copernicus, Brahe, countless more

in line with learning and lighting

the dark unknown. “Eat any fruit,” we

recall, “save that from the tree of

the knowledge of good and evil.” Why

tempt us more than the Serpent?

As Magi know, we travel now in grace.