Just finished reading The Trouble With Poetry by Billy Collins (and other poems, the subtitle helpfully adds), and was struck by how metaphor handles are on everything, and how you just need to know how to find them. Most people just look at things right side up, but others — poets, madmen, and Chesterton — …
Rocks in the Drive
When strings are pulled taut, the cello is tuned,The wood holds the wine that is seasoned and old.Dark music poured out and emptied the cask,And rolled in my goblet, rich, tawny and toldHow holiness tastes, how righteousness laughs. You shall be as God, the great dragon had said,Philosophers argue their shapes in the fireAnd each …
Our Lady of Westminster
Marian obedience, the jewelry of God, has adorned the gracious necks of many women, hearts rejoicing in God their Savior. Fiat mihi. Margaret Wilson, tied to a stake, struggled and drowned, filled with water, yet full of grace.Marie Durant—behold this handmaiden of the Lord— spent 38 years in a forsaken tower by the sea, rather than …
The Prosaic Ceiling
Indulge me for a moment. I am working through a volume of poetry by Robert Siegel, The Waters Under the Earth, which I am really enjoying. I would encourage you to do the same. Get it today! Christmas is coming! But in the course of reading him, some unsettled thoughts about poetry that I have …
Happy Are The People
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! O Lord our God, we bless the Lord, Our strength, and the one who teaches strength; You teach our hands for war, And our fingers for fighting. You are goodness itself, our goodness. You are our fortress, and high tower Our deliverer, …
Arms Stretched to Fill the Barns
Minister: Lift up your hearts!Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! When You our Lord released us from our captivity We were like dreamers.Our mouths were filled with laughter, And all our tongues could do was sing. Heathen onlookers were baffled, And acknowledged that our God had done Great things for us.So we amen …
Canadians and Kurds
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! O praise the Lord, all you nations, You Gentiles and tribes to the end of the earth. Praise Him, all you people, Canadians and Kurds, Americans and Armenians, Brazilians and Englishmen, Chinese and Russians, Poles and Japanese, Praise Him all you people. …
Thomas
So poetry is broken speech, Metaphor shattered. Not broken prose But prose broken- That resurrection power Might be displayed, And like the Word These tiny words Can also then be called and named sons of God. Yet how many men Have been crucified? With broken legs, They suffocate. A pole upright, Half-pound nails And murderous …
The Night Before Whatsit
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land, We still mark the birth of the One who is banned From public discussion or public display. “Get rid of the Christ child–but still keep the day!” So public school children must practice with stealth Those carols which threaten our strange commonwealth, And now and …
David’s Tent
Our Lord and God, when Shiloh fell, Your mercy on Your people was buried deep, hidden, in the rubble of disaster. When the ark of the covenant was plunder, Your invisible hand held it firm. When the covenant came back to Israel, Your hand was still there, and Uzzah’s hand was impudence. The silent tabernacle …