Short and to the point

I never liked school assignments to write haiku poems. The results never sounded very poetic to me, and I got the impression that the purpose of the assignment was to make a way for kids who didn’t know how to write poems to write poems. It’s not that a poem has to rhyme, but just stringing words together according to a certain pattern does not make a poem.

I have discovered, however, that haiku contests produce some good stuff. I don’t know if they’re good poetry, but some of them definitely are humorous or thought-provoking. Several months ago, I read about a haiku contest in thinkgeek.com’s newsletter. I wrote my own haiku and submitted it, but it didn’t win. As I apparently didn’t save it, and I don’t remember it anymore, I can’t say how it compares with some of those that have won.

Since the haikus become the property of thinkgeek.com, I don’t know whether I can legitimately quote any here. But some of them are pretty good. If you don’t have a computer background, you may not understand a few of them. But take a look. Something there should make you smile.

I just read today about a haiku contest in conjunction with the upcoming G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. And this page has Harry Potter haiku. At first I thought it was someone’s clever creation based on characters from the book, but it turns out it actually  takes dialogue from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and writes it as haiku.

You can sample some beer haiku (even if, like me, you don’t like beer). You can even read movie reviews in haiku form. But I think I like these dog haikus the best.

Writing a haiku
Is discipline for the mind:
Short and to the point.

Nothing’s small

I noticed in wikiquote today that it is the birthday of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (born 1806). Browning has never been one of my favorite poets, but I do like some of the lines quoted in wikiquote. In particular, I’ve remembered the lines “Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God” since I was in ninth grade, and they were part of an anthem we sang in the church choir.

I had sometimes seen the following two lines quoted also: “But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.” But until today I never saw the lines that come before. Here is all of it, from Aurora Leigh Bk. VII, l. 812-826

And truly, I reiterate, . . nothing’s small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim:
And, – glancing on my own thin, veined wrist, -
In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.

It reminds me of the idea of “finding God in all things” in St. Ignatius‘ teaching on spirituality. In warm weather when I walk outside more, it is easier to remember, as I drink in the beauty of trees and flowers and sky and clouds and birds and their songs. Lately it has been only in gazing at the starry sky when I walk the dog at night.

But it’s getting warmer! Soon perhaps I can spend more time looking for common bushes afire with God. I’m sure they’re around indoors as well, but somehow they’re harder to see.

Snow on a Sunday afternoon

Walking my dog is sometimes as much frustration as relaxation. I walk; she stops to sniff. I stroll; she gallops. Besides trying to keep her from pooping in a neighbor’s yard or dashing in front of a passing car, I have to deal with her tendency to get the leash wrapped around her legs – and when I try to free them she struggles and gets tangled even more.

But this afternoon we stepped outside and the air just felt so peaceful. After the subzero temperatures of Thursday and Friday, today felt quite comfortable, just a few degrees below freezing. The snow was falling lightly, filling the air around us and dampening sounds, but adding very little to the thin layer of snow already covering the ground from last night.

We meandered up the street, Kyra stopping to stick her muzzle in the snow here and there sniffing for who knows what. I found myself more interested in the falling snow than in getting exercise, even waxing poetic about it.

Snowflakes fall softly,
Soundlessly,
Down-to-earth.
No lightning flash
Or thunder crash,
No beating drums
Or rising floods.
Only gentle
Snowflakes come.

Sometimes God’s love comes with thunder
Or dazzling flashes of light,
Sometimes in a flood of miracles,
So that scarcely can anyone wonder
If a God of love and might
Is watching over us.

But mostly
His love gently
Falls like snowflakes.
Each one tiny,
Sometimes shiny,
Barely noticed.
But together
They make up
A mighty covering.

Christmas Time

Christmas Time

I live in time, where days and hours
Exert their sure, relentless powers,
So that, as long as I draw breath,
Each brings me nearer to my death.

You live outside of time, and see,
With Your all-knowing clarity,
All that has been, and is, and will
Occur, Your purpose to fulfill.

In taking flesh, you were confined
By the limits of your human mind,
Where only Now and Past are known.
The Future belongs to God alone.

Some Spirit-given glimpses still
Informed you of your Father’s will.
But other times you only knew
The daily work He had for you.

So I can face each challenging day
Remembering you have shown the Way.
Constrained by time but Spirit-led,
You made God’s will your daily bread.

I’ve heard and read many times about how Jesus gave up the splendor of heaven to be born as a man and live among us. He traded heavenly riches for earthly poverty, the adoration of angels for the hollow praise of men, often mixed with or followed by their withering scorn or outright hostility. He traded power for humility, comfort for suffering, and unending intimacy with the Father and Spirit for a life that ended with the dark hours on the cross.

Holly Springs: PS

Looking through my “My Documents” directory this evening, I found a file I had started Friday that I had intended to use in yesterday’s post on Home to Holly Springs. So now I’m adding a PS to yesterday’s post.

Towards the end of the book, someone (Henry, I think?) recites a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Some of the other poetry quoted in Karon’s books doesn’t do much for me (unlike Father Tim, I’m no Wordsworth fan). But this one particularly struck me as good poetry as well as real wisdom.

Life

A CRUST of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
    And that is life!

A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
    And that is life!

What do you get …

… when you cross National Kite Month with National Poetry Month?

Lots of poems about kites, of course. My poem-a-day emails have not been arriving, so I decided to go looking for some. My son and I flew kites in the park today (Yay for good weather!), so I thought I would see if I could find any kite poems. I was pleased that my internet search yielded quite a few hits – then quickly realized that my idea of kite poems in April was hardly a new one.

The cruelest month?

Besides being National Kite Month, I just discovered (thanks to infoplease.com) that April is also National Poetry Month. So along with trying to fly a kite (still waiting for some good kite-flying weather), I resolve to enjoy some poems. But just as a kite-friendly wind can’t be planned but simply comes along and sweeps you along if you’re ready for it, finding a good poem to read often depends as much on serendipity as on effort.

Like many people, I grew up prefering prose to poetry. Poems were something you had to read sometimes in school, but you would never read just for fun. (Unless you count poems by A. A. Milne or Ogden Nash, but to me “poetry” always meant the serious stuff we read in English class.) The first poem from school (7th grade, I think) that I liked well enough to save a copy for myself to read later was “The Highwayman.” And that was more for the story than its poetic nature.