Poetry Sunday

October 2, 2005

by Rev Roger Butts

Emerson rocked the religious world in 1838 when he addressed the graduating class of the divinity school in Cambridge MA. He wanted to say a new word about religion. He wanted them to say a new word about religion. He did not ask them to take on greater logic. He did not ask them to take on greater knowledge, though he certainly would not have discouraged them in that regard, but they had just come through Harvard, there was little regard for a religion that wasn’t tied to the newest discoveries of science. He did not ask them to take on greater ethics. He did not ask them to start a revolution in social justice. He asked them, simply, to speak out of their deepest lives, passed through the fire of thought, he asked them to turn their experiences into scripture, but only after deep reflection, discernment and prayer. He gave them, in essence, a poetic imperative.

He said to them, Unitarianism will fall as it must if it does not provide a religion that takes strong hold of people’s souls. And he said, the soul longs for poetry. Our faith should blend with the setting and the rising sun.

“Courage, piety, love, wisdom can teach; and every person can open the door to these angels, and they shall bring him the gift of tongues. But the wo/man who aims to speak as books enable, as synods use, as the fashion guides, and as interest commands, babbles. Let him hush."

We’re here this morning, this Poetry Sunday, to open the doors to the angels of courage, love, piety and wisdom. To learn from them. And to receive the gift of tongues.

I have always written some poetry. But for a while in the early to mid 90s, I had stopped. And then one evening in 96, 97, after a long day at the National Research Council, in upper Georgetown, I, as was my custom, walked up to my apartment in the next neighborhood Glover Park. On Wisconsin Avenue, close to my apartment, there was a small restaurant, I can’t now recall what kind it was. It was just a good upscale neighborhood restaurant with a nice crowd. And I stopped in for a glass of wine, and down at the other end of the bar, there were two guys, arguing with the bartender about whether Muriels’ Wedding or Priscilla Queen of the Desert was the better flick. The language, the ambience, these two fellows who I imagined had a second house in Provincetown or West Palm or the Hamptons, and my still inner voice, all got worked up inside me to reignite my poetic side.

And the only thing that poem is about, the angel of wisdom and love that visited me on that day was simply this: Is this world a thing of beauty or what? Is hope not born within us in the smallest ways?

So when I got to seminary a few years later, and my seminary had a Center for the Arts and Religion, I signed up for a poetry teacher. I wanted to go deeper. So when I came here, my first parish, I wanted to initiate a Poetry Sunday. We’ve had Rebecca Wee from Augustana, we’ve had James McKeen, a lovely poet from Mt. Mercy College. Next year (more about that later), we’ll have Kevin Stein, Illinois Poet Laureate. He’ll be with us Oct 2 of 2006. But today, we celebrate some remarkable poets of our own Laura Lopez, Kathleen Lawless Cox, Quad Cities Poet Laureate, and Mary Beth Kwasek. All of their poetry bring an angel of wisdom and courage and love and of course piety.

I want to say a few things about where the poetic imperative leads us, as religious liberals. This is not exhaustive. Poetry and religion share a common trait, that is: beauty is within the eye of the beholder. But I want to say a few things about what you’re going to hear today. First, poetry and liberal religion share an emphasis on the oneness of spirit and flesh—you’ll hear in Mary Beth and Laura’s poetry a regard for the body. There is no separation of the matter and spirit. As the body is celebrated, nature is too. Water, earth, seed, moon. The poet and the religious liberal acknowledge that ultimate authority rests from within. This is why Emerson laid out his Poetic Imperative in such strong terms in 1838. We are still learning about this. There is an emphasis on feeling and intimacy. There is a call for direct, honest language in both poetry and liberal religion. There is a call to celebrate relationship and the unity of all life. And there is the constant invitation to revision the old, normative myths and to revision the nature of the divine. It is, after all about imagination and flights of fancy.

Check for these things in the poems that follow. And as I close, I share this poem called Introduction to Poetry by my favorite Billy Collins

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

LAURA LOPEZ

Surname LOPEZ Name Meaning & Origin

Definition: A patronymical surname meaning "son of Lope." Lope
comes from the Spanish form of Lupus, a Latin name meaning "wolf."

Surname Origin: Spanish

I am the Wolf

I am the fertile one that nurtured civilization

I am a hunter, wild freedom

Evil, vicious, cunning and rapacious

Dante’s hungry, greedy fixation

Devil, god, witch, deliverer of the Ute

Destroyer of the Icelandic world

I frightened Little Red Riding Hood

I impersonate Chinese grandmothers

Remove my mask and you are underneath

I eat the sun, howl at the moon

I am a home-wrecker of swine

I am big and bad

Run and dance with me

Slink through my loup hole

Call me High Wolf, Canis lupus

Fear my beauty untamed

I am red, gray, white

I am a pre-historic dog

I am a mother, sister and mate

I am a posterchild for animal rights

Ranchers despise me

I am carnivorous

I am a pelt

I am a living creature that paces in the zoo

Commute to Work

Laura Lopez

I pass Frieda’s tea room—a place with odd business hours, luscious

Desserts and affable German-born Frieda herself

The vegetable stand that sells “Peach’s and Cream” sweet corn

The “Booze ‘n Bait: cold beer live bait” sign in Watertown

Tells all you need to know about their establishment

Train cars stand by at the ready on desolate tracks

But I remember when…

Shaffer’s Fresh Fish: kosher available—30 miles ahead

Is my cue to round the bend

Only to discover a slow wide load hauling new farm equipment

To keep me late for work

I stop in at the Hampton Post Office to buy stamps for the week

And find cars running idle in the parking lot

The postmaster, Missy, and I are on a first-name-small-town-

Know-your-business basis now

Sled tracks in the slope at Illiniwick Park

Prove children leave no good hill untested

There are no campers enjoying the outdoors

In their luxury motor homes at the campgrounds today

It is with a sense of loss I note Fisherman’s Corner

Is closed for the season

Bald eagles skim bare white treetops

And I notice a muskrat frolicking in the Mississippi River beside floating ice

As I enter the office

Chad Pregracke

Founder and President of Living Lands & Waters

Laura Lopez

The Constant Maintenance

Glides somewhere on the Mississippi

With her fleet and crew

In the darkness on the barge

The surrounding Mississippi River

Becomes a presence

Felt but unseen.

The leader of this entourage, who

Has stamina enough to be a superhero

To all the watersheds in the Midwest,

Holds court beside an island bonfire.

Each year he leaves clean riverbanks,

New trees, hope and inspiration in his wake.

For hundreds who join him in the crusade -

The fire in his eyes is a beacon on the water.

Follower

Renewed by the solid moon that

Lights patches of mossy ground

I will follow over fallen tree

I sense darkness is freedom

To a moth, and wings of a bat

Claim the sweet humid air

With each velvety beat

I will follow time and again—

Each footfall traces those before

Motions left over nightly wanders

In pursuit of a tiny flame

My forest guide sometimes flies

Among tree branches before coursing

Back to earth in search of love

My journey is not solitary

Sounds of crickets, frogs and owls

Anchor me to this place, this time

And will not allow me to drift away

I do not try to catch the firefly

I let it guide me to my destination

Saturday Evening Service

A crimson leaf catches a glint of last sunlight

While falling – a farewell wave to afternoon

A breeze ushers it away into the chill night

Full of leaves gathered close –

Congregations of maples, oaks and locusts

Huddled, whispering and laughing softly

Splayed before the sermon of the moon

“Harvest”, the moon bellows, “has arrived”

“Let us extend ourselves into the world.

Spread over quiet garden, grassy valley and

Sapling alike to blanket the earth for winter.”

A hearty rustle rises into the October air

A joyous chorus sweeps over spent fields

As sharply dressed parishioners eagerly scatter

Mary Beth Kwasek

The Artist

By Mary Beth Kwasek

My great grandfather

Nicholas O’Brien

carved coal

he left home

as the sun rose

breath blooming in

bursts of lace

like the curtains in the

row houses he left behind

he dawdled

kicking the dust

with his toe

thinking about

his bed

and sisters

preparing for

another day of picking

tiny bits of coal

from the slag heaps

he knew he’d become

a tiny bit of human

wishing to be picked

out of the coal . . .

but God didn’t

love like that

he held his breath

as he went down

keeping the fresh morning

within him . . .

God will not

pull you out of the coal Nickie-boy

God will not

brush the dust from your lungs

God will not

melt coal with tears . . . only fire

. . .until breath slowly

whistled out between

his lips into the mine

where he knew

the whispered secrets

tickled the mule’s soft ears

lucky coins jingled; lucky boots stank

bits of bread tamed rats

thin drafts carried confessions and

walls dripped damp with prayers.

Nicholas felt about in the darkness

and slipped a chunk of

hard coal in his pocket

to carve later.

* * *

In the corner of the bar

in dim light of evening,

the coal looked wet.

As he carved in the lamp light, he

whittled away the dust of the day

polished the growing darkness

scraped away his fears

He listened to

music in the bar

thin fiddle

singing

songs about drinking

songs about after drinking

the dancing

legs of the best dancer

one crushed shorter

than the other

so the dance goes

in circles and circles

always smaller

than the circumference

of the mine

the shadows dance the walls

hunched shoulders

curved backs

a black face appears

in Nicholas’ hands

a perfectly round head

with rough stubbled hair

a smooth bald spot

in the back

pencil thin arched eyebrows

an aquiline nose

round eyes in which he

glued tiny sulfur diamonds

jewels of the poor

yellow and grey sparkle

the color of the coal

lit by miner’s lamps.

Nicholas carves and polishes

until the fiddler’s arms are

ringed in sweat

and shadows lay long

and tired against the walls

and then they notice

the quiet boy in the corner

“Ah, Yes. Nickie-boy!”

They circle around and

point at the statue with

fingers that soften and

brush the dark face

breath releases in soft rushes,

around him

it is the face . . . the black face

charred by the blast

crushed in the cave in

scarred with coal dust

the face. . . made smooth

the way a mother smoothes

a blanket in the coffin

the way a wife smoothes

dirt at the grave

the way a child smoothes

a shirt over her hungry belly

their eyes glisten

in the dim lamplight

and Nicholas

whose eyes wanted sunlight

whose lungs wanted clean air

whose hands wanted

drawing classes

granite

Paris exhibitions

who never left the edge

of the mine . . .

draws his hand back

through his hair

leaving smudges

from his blackened fingers

like deep bruises.

Nicholas stares into the face

past the reflection of his own

past the smooth

cheek of the carving,

he stares back

into the mine

with barely a flicker of the

miner’s lamp.

The statue lays cold

and heavy in his dirty hands.

God will not

pull you out of the coal Nickie-boy

God will not

brush the dust from your lungs

God will not

melt coal with tears . . . only fire

God gives your hands this shape

to make dust smooth

to sooth sorrows

for a moment.

God loves like this.

Anna

by Mary Beth Kwasek

I never knew Anna

but her face smiled at me

from the bedroom

from the family room

from the hallway

of my grandmother’s house.

At first, I thought

I found her

in the old photos

where her white skin

loomed and emerged

a face

caught by a moment

of murky light defined

by shadow

and edges

where Anna ended

and the gray world began

But really

I couldn’t find Anna

only my own eyes

unable to see past

the shine of the present.

So I went to the place she was born

to a place where the world

lay gutted and sifted

where coal dust drifted

on the endless colliery rattle

settling into minds, into bones

into the souls

of people who lived

in the narrow towns

lining valleys

with long streets and

slender stacked three story

company row houses

white lace curtains

in every window.

I listened

to hear Anna’s footsteps crunch

along the gritty streets

or see her on the edge of town

a graceful white form.

hopping from

slab heap to slab heap

I went to find the house

where the doorknob

recognized her touch,

but it was gone

swallowed by the mines

in this place

where coal was prized

and men were piled outside as refuse

as Anna’s father was

maimed and discarded

using liquor to fill

the deep hollow places

I could only find

the unemployed

rattle of silence

drifting through vacant lots

and mountains of rubble.

So I followed Anna’s footsteps

away from the town

to the Catholic convent

where she became a nun.

In the turreted brick abbey

among green hills

word spread that I’d come searching.

They came to meet me

with walkers and wheelchairs

white hair covered by

black veils --

the regretful glances

as one by one

they couldn’t place Anna

she had died too young of consumption.

So I walked Anna’s last path

lined with blooming magnolia

to the graveyard with graves

white and neat

I found Anna’s grave marked

“Sister Mary Helen”

a stone without her given name

sharing it with another young woman

as anonymous as Anna

buried one casket on top the other

their white bones falling to dust

in each other’s arms.

“Being so young, she must have taken her vow on her death bed.”

A sister whispered next to me,

“It’s so nice that you came looking for her.”

I looked down beside me

to a tiny black cloaked head.

She’d been a teacher

as Anna would have been

She’d spent her life

caring for children

who would never be there

to care for her.

Her hands were so soft as they

reached to hold mine.

As we stood by Anna’s grave

I understood

the peace of silence

away from coal dust

I felt

the gratitude

of one who is needed.

And when I looked up

in the blossoms

of the magnolia

petals of white skin

veined red

I found Anna.

Poetry Sunday October 2, 2005

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

Poetry Sunday

October 2, 2005