The Laws of Primogeniture

A conversation I had the other day reminded me of this poem by Linda Pastan. I don't have a deep knowledge of modern poets and poetry, but I really love her work. I think because she came to Baylor my senior year for our annual poetry festival and I attended her poetry reading. No one can bring life to a poem like the one who wrote it. So I hear her voice in my head when I read this poem, which makes it more meaningful . . .

The Laws of Primogeniture

My grandson has my father's mouth
with its salty sayings
and my grandfather's crooked ear
that heard the soldiers coming.

He has the pale eyes of the Cossack
who saw my great-great-grandmother
in the woods, then wouldn't stop
looking.

And see him now, pushing
his bright red fire truck towards
a future he thinks he's inventing
all by himself.

Easter

by George Herbert

Rise, heart, thy lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him may'st rise:
That, as his death calcinèd thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and, much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art,
The cross taught all wood to resound his name
Who bore the same.
His stretchèd sinews taught all strings what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort, both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long;
Or, since all music is but three parts vied
And multiplied
Oh let thy blessèd Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

Good Friday

Good Friday

by George Herbert

O my chief good,
How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?

Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one star show'd thy first breath,
Shall all thy death?

Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit be sign
Of the true vine?

Then let each hour
Of my whole life one grief devour:
That thy distress through all may run,
And be my sun.

Or rather let
My several sins their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure doth know,
Each sin may so.

Since blood is fittest, Lord to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store, write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:

That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
'No room for me', and fly away.

Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.


*********************************************

In this new season, I have no lofty words to share; no wisdom to impart.
My heart grieves for it's sad state: Apathy. Indecision. Restlessness. Selfishness.
Over the past 40 days I've done very little to reflect, to intercede, to cultivate.
The small sacrifice I have made seems meager and inadequate.
What can come from such an act? From sacrifice with no great follow through?
My finite mind thinks, "Very little."
But my spirit must look beyond and trust.
Trust that those prayers prayed in secret were heard.
Trust that the grace I've always experienced does not run dry.
Trust that this is the Year of Restoration.
For me, for my family, for my friends.

So exciting!!!

Doesn't this look AWESOME?! It makes me want to read the books again! Yes, I did watch Anne of Green Gables last weekend and felt the same about those books.
*sigh*
I miss the days of curling up with a good book and a hot cup of coffee and not feeling guilty. Oh, for it to be summer again! Or even Christmas vacation!



Thanks to Dani for the link!

Incoherent thoughts that must escape

First, literature:

I love Anne of Green Gables. I forgot how much. I haven't seen it in well over a decade, so I was quite delighted when I went up to Waco and Bird and Brandi recently received it from Netflix. We started it Sat night and then I played the rest of it Sun after church. Even the kids seemed to get into it. I brought one of the books w/ me to work; not that I have ANY time to read. Just sit and day dream. Everyone rants and raves about Mr. Darcy while poor Gilbert Blythe is lost in the depths of literary memory. He's such a good guy, too!

Second, random:

Driving home last night I heard the author of Get Married on KSBJ. She was explaining how women, specifically, need to become proactive in their quest for marriage when they reach the "marrying age." Not to sit and wait for it to happen as we've done for years, but pray and seek out mentors to confide your desire in. To even look to older women/couples to make potential matches. Yeah, I'm not too sure how I feel about all that yet. It sounds a bit . . . desperate? But then again, I'm less than 3 years away from 30 and according to this lady my expiration date has been stamped and will soon draw near!

Finally, God speaks:

Powerful moment in church yesterday. During the sermon over Philippians 3 a man cried out and people started asking for a doctor. He had a seizure which triggered a heart problem. Everyone immediately started praying. Then the worship leader went up and led us in worship. I wept because I know I would want the same for my father. What better place for that to happen than a church where 1,000+ prayers will immediately go up on one's behalf and where the body of Christ will worship for you?

Then, I wept because just two nights before someone I know was sick in prison. Shaking with fever, lying on a concrete floor with only a thin blanket for warmth. Even the tinniest of medication was withheld. Some may say he got what he deserved for breaking the law and deceiving the people who love him. Some may say he deserves worse. But somehow, I don't think that's what Jesus would have said, or what He would have us say.

He who is forgiven much, loves much . . .

Then, I was angry. The people that should have been praying and worshiping on this prisoner's behalf were few and far between. When his sins were confessed there weren't 1,000+ there to pray and worship on his behalf. There weren't 100.

Then, I was assured.

The prayers of a righteous man avail much . . .

One is enough. And one is all you need in the darkest hours of life.

Add it to the stack!

My latest literary acquirements to add to the stack of books I fear I may never get read:



I'm halfway through Enna Burning and LOVE IT! Hale's first book from this 3-book series, The Goose Girl, was also phenomenal. It's based off of a two-page Brothers Grimm fairy tail. I actually also bought that book to send my friend, Kelley, in England.



























As a late birthday present I used a gift card to buy Hale's latest book, Book of a Thousand Days. It's another retold Brothers Grimm classic.













I did get a grown-up novel: The Kite Runner. I loved A Thousand Splendid Suns, even though I heard The Kite Runner is better, so I have high hopes for this one.












My final acquisition is The Tree: Wonder of the Natural World, pictured here in Spanish. I bought the English version, which I found in the bargain books section and only paid $8! It contains beautiful pictures that I would love to paint. Someday, I hope.




I LOVE BOOKS!!!

I don't typically do book reviews

My dear friend, Elaine, gave me A Thousand Splendid Suns on Christmas Eve. It's the new book by Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner, which I haven't read 'cause I've been a real slacker in keeping up with literature. Anywho, I finished the book yesterday. It was such a moving and eye-opening novel.

Even though I've traveled to the region, I've learned I don't know much about Central Asian culture and religion or the wars that have ravaged that region for generations. This book is set specifically in Afghanistan. I have friends who have traveled there; I know people who are laboring there, even now. I get their weekly or monthly emails and newsletters. But it's so different experiencing the culture from a native's perspective; hearing about what they've had to shoulder over the years.

This book broke down stereotypes that, despite my first-hand cultural knowledge and experience, I didn't realize was there. Reading of the horrors these women endured broke my heart. True, they're fictional characters, but their story is so true. There are people my age who lived through the communist take-over, then their defeat. They celebrated when they witnessed their invaders leaving their home, but then they were heart-broken when the sectarian fighting erupted, pinning them once again in the middle of war. They froze in fear at the sound of rockets and bullets exploding overhead. They lost homes, loved-ones, and the familiarity of their communities. Then the joy of the Taliban crushing the warlords was short-lived, as we all now know. All of this within the past three decades, within my lifetime, and I never fully understood it or knew of it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns has a happy ending; a hopeful ending. And I sure am a sucker for a good story with a happy ending, even though I know life doesn't always turn out that way. But it's not the typical Hollywood happy ending. It may seem like it is at first glance -- people struggling and in pain, enduring one thing after another, hope is in the horizon and then it's crushed again and again, until it finally does come and stays. That's exactly what happens, but what makes it different is it's REAL. These are real people, a real nation, who have been torn apart by war. Yet hope is still alive, as long as they are still alive, despite all the devastation over the years.

I forget how lucky we are here in America, or The West, if you will. It's easy to get pulled into the mundane, everyday life. And it's not bad that our lives here are vastly different from someone's on the other side of the world. It's easy for me to feel guilty, to think there's something I need to be doing. I suppose the best thing I can do, what we all can do, is to remember. And pray. And give thanks for what we have.

Poem of the Day

A Conceit
by Maya Angelou


Give me your hand

Make room for me
to lead and follow
you
beyond this rage of poetry.

Let others have
the privacy of
touching words
and love of loss
of love.

For me
Give me your hand.

Poem of the Day

Be Strong
by Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858-1901)

Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle - face it; 'tis God's gift.

Be strong!
Say no, "The days are evil. Who's to blame?"
And fold the hands and acquiesce - oh shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.

Be strong!
It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long;
Faint not - fight on! To-morrow comes the song.

Poem of the Day

Waiting
by John Borroughs (1837-1921)

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind nor tide nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays -
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me,
No wind can drive my bark astray
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

Poem of the Day

If All Who Have Begged Help
by Anna Akhmatova

If all who have begged help
From me in this world,
All the holy innocents,
Broken wives, and cripples,
The imprisoned, the suicidal -
If they had sent me one kopeck
I should have become 'richer
Than all Egypt' . . .
But they did not send me kopecks,
Instead they shared with me their strength,
And so nothing in the world
Is stronger than I,
And I can bear anything, even this.

translated by D.M. Thomas

Poem of the Day

A New Poet
by Linda Pastan

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.

Poem of the Day

Love (III)
by George Herbert

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here;"
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes buy I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

Poem of the Day

Baseball Is
by Greg Hall

Baseball is grass, chalk, and dirt displayed the same yet differently
In every park that has ever heard the words play ball.
Baseball is a passion that bonds and divides all those who know it.
Baseball is a pair of hands stained with newsprint,
A set of eyes squinting to read a boxscore,
A brow creased in an attempt to recreate a three-hour game
From an inch square block of type.
Baseball is the hat I wear to mow the lawn.
Baseball is a simple game of catch
and the never-ending search for the perfect knuckleball.
Baseball is Willie vs Mickey, Gibson vs Koufax, and Buddy Biancalana vs the odds.
Baseball links Kansan and Missourian, American and Japanese,
But most of all father and son.
Baseball is the scent of spring,
The unmistakable sound of a double down the line,
And the face of a 10-year-old emerging from a pile of bodies
With a worthless yet priceless foul ball.
Baseball is a language of very simple words that tell unbelievably magic tales.
Baseball is three brothers in the same uniform on the same team for one brief summer
Captured forever in a black and white photo on a table by the couch.
Baseball is a glove on a shelf, oiled and tightly wrapped,
Slumbering through the stark winter months.
Baseball is a breast pocket bulging with a transistor radio.
Baseball is the reason there are transistor radios.
Baseball is a voice in a box describing men you've never met,
In a place you've never been,
Doing things you'll never have the chance to do.
Baseball is a dream that you never really give up on.
Baseball is precious.
Baseball is timeless.
Baseball is forever.

Poem of the Day

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Poem of the Day

Holy Sonnet 1
from John Donne's Holy Sonnets

Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me
That not one hour myself I can sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

Poem of the Day

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things-
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls, finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced-fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Poem of the Day

Prayer of the Selfish Child
from A Light in the Attic
by Shel Silverstein

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my toys to break.
So none of the other kids can use 'em. . . .
Amen.

Poem of the Day

Closer Is He than Breathing,and Nearer than Hands and Feet
by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?
Is not the Vision He? tho' He be not that which he seems?
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb,
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?
Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why;
For is He not all but that which has power to feel "I am I"?
Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom
Making him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom.
Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.
God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice,
For if he is thunder by law the thunder is yet his voice.

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower - but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Hallowed be thy name - Halleluiah!
Infinite ideality!
Immeasurable Reality!
Infinite Personality!
Hallowed be thy name - Halleluiah!
We feel we are nothing - for all is Thou and in Thee;
We feel we are something - that also has come from thee;
We know we are nothing - but Thou wilt help us to be.
Hallowed be thy name - Halleluiah!

Poem of the Day

Vermilion
by Linda Pastan

Pierre Bonnard would enter
the museum with a tube of paint
in his pocket and a sable brush.
Then violating the sanctity
of one of his own frames
he'd add a stroke of vermilion
to the skin of a flower.
Just so I stopped you
at the door this morning
and licking my index finger, removed
an invisible crumb
from your vermilion mouth. As if
at the ritual moment of departure
I had to show you still belonged to me.
As if revision were
the purest form of love.