Fast Day 251 March 24 2012 {Lullaby}

Lullaby

I am close, do not fear,
little one, little one;
you can feel my heart beating
like a drum, like a drum;

Je suis ici, aupres de toi:
ne crains rien, crains rien;
je t' protège du monde sauvage,
ma main… dans la main.

--
notes
stanza 2

I am here, nearby:
do not fear, do not fear;
I shall protect you from the savage world,
my hand in your hand.

St. Patrick Notes

Someone asked me for a brief run through of the Saint Patrick poem.

stanza 1 and 2
a description of our Irish ancestors emigration to North America.

stanza 3
in ancient philosophy there was a tradition of Platonism which continued into the Early Church: the Truth was in the heavenly and unchanging realms far above the earth.

stanza 4
but the ancients of Ireland lived far below the eternal truths and were pagan until Patrick came.

stanza 5
celebration of the gifts of Ireland to the world.

Fast Day 250 March 17 2012 {Feast of Patrick}

Feast  of Patrick

my own

ancestors from Ireland

died aboard the ships,

and were buried on Grosse Isle,

obliged in death to kind Quebec.

my wife’s

people from Ireland; they

were decimated

but not abolished, setting

foot upon the Canadian shore,

like wandering saints of Colum's day.

the stars

above in the highest heights,

unsullied and pure,

go their way from truth to truth,

and do not hold compacts with earth…

… where we live

out detailed days  of discords,

unaware until

Padraic’s crozier came among us:

the head of Ireland’s piety.

play pipes!

play the reels for dancing feet!

sodden with porridge…

philosophy… and with heresy!

beacon of the West! Forever free!

--

notes

Colum  - St. Columba, who left Derry to sail to Scotland and other places.

Padraic  -  St. Patrick

Fast Day 249 March 10 2012 {Iran}

 Alborz Mountains in Northern Iran

Iran

“It is time for a strike”, he said,

“with surgeon’s skill about the head

of the devil ‘s theocracy…”

and here it was that he lost me,

for I had known him many years,

and we had traded hopes and fears

in the morning car-pool debates

where we tossed the course of states;

“You said the same about Iraq,

mix’d metaphors of awe and shock,

and when you thought the job was done,

we found that it had just begun!

So you called for even more

surgeons that we had before!”

 “Thousands of surgeons with their skills,

and homeopaths with herbal pills;

and it will be a bloodless bath –

so easy, let me do the math:

as Bush and Wolfowitz have said

as down that primrose path they led,

it will not cost a bloody cent,

for the oil proceeds will be spent

to satisfy our aggrieved claims…

but in case, don’t mention names!

They put the bombings on TV

at prime time hours for all to see;

and still pretend that it was good:

for country, pie, and motherhood!"
--

Fast Day 248 March 3 2012 {Orpheus Ascending MLK}

Orpheus Ascending MLK

On Mardi Gras our sweets are lifted
onto floats of other-worldly panoply
where black Orpheus resurrects Eurydice
and sweeps her off her feet again
under the frown of Death,
who conspirator with God above
did punk Job with wiles combined
methodically graceful and deceit;
we again wend our way Sisyphaean
up the slopes of our work-a-day lives.

Everyone knows who Orpheus was;
singing in the church, corner of Trumbull
and Martin L K Boulevard,
by Barnabas Center, righteous miracle man
who cures blind eyes of abandoned windows
and turns the heat back on for widows;
his monuments being fruit trees in abandoned lots
facing the warmth of the southern sun
where he dies late in the year, and is interred
in the forcing bed of his new resurrection!

--
Spring around the neighborhood of Trumbull and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Detroit; promises of resurrection; I go to the Dentist nearby.