Transmission

That Girl Did Not Fear England January 12, 2008

That Girl Did Not Fear England
By j. SNODGRASS

Read it online with illustrations by Mike Jackson

Illustrations originally presented as slides
projected during a live reading
at Easter at Avalon
April 8, 2007

There was not long ago or far away
A town where children played and sang all day
And once their folks had tucked them in at night
The kids hid under covers in their fright
Except one little lady, strong and feral
A wild, precocious child by name of Carol
Who’d lie in silence, with her eyes tight closed
And wait till all the town serenely dozed

Then up she’d jump and loudly she’d declare
“It takes more than the dark to get me scared!”
Outside her window, an old Oak-tree grew
Perhaps this tree’s who she was speaking to
Regardless, she continued “Oh well sure
I’m frightened when the morning traffic roars
The hairs on my young neck do stand on ender
When mom throws fresh tomatoes in the blender
And last week on a class trip to the zoo
The tongue of a giraffe, it scared me too
There’s causes for concern both far and near
But one thing that I’ll never, ever fear…”

“Is England! Yeah, they once were some great power
But now are ‘bout as fearful as a flower
Their royal navy bullied the whole world
Now they can’t frighten this six year old girl!
I fear the toxic waste dumped in the sea
I fear the slash and burn of every tree
I fear the monsters underneath my bed
I fear the spirits mumbling in my head
I fear the pit-bull readying to pounce
But I do not fear England – not one ounce”

(more…)

Sabbath Poem (Fall) November 29, 2007

Fall into Night

by Bowie Snodgrass
Written last year for a time longer ago.

That Fall, I felt like I got thrown into the ocean –
All waves, rocky cliffs, unknown chaos reigned,
But you were my great beacon of hope, my lighthouse.

When Christmas tide came, the days became short –
You turned out your light, and turned me away,
Set me out to find my own way, row my way home.

And thus the metaphor began: when no wind, row –
So I picked up my oar, enjoyed calm days, starry nights,
And made it through winter storms, waves, and hurricanes.

When the last waves washed me up, pummeled me into
The shore, I looked up and saw bright rays at night –
Realized I was on dry land and there before me, Light.

Sabbath Poem (Mahler 3) October 7, 2007

Last night I saw Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 for the second time this year! This time it was the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez, at NYC’s own Carnegie Hall. This was only my second time there! and we sat in ‘limited legroom’ seats in the balcony, with wonderful sounds of 120 orchestra players, plus 30 women and 30 boy singers reverberating off the ceiling.

The first time I heard Mahler 3 was on July 14th at Tanglewood, MA with the James Levine conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. During the intermission between the first movement and the last five… I got engaged! Yup, George asked me to marry him on the hillside above Ozawa Hall. So this piece has permanent special significance to me…. especially the 6th movement, “What love tells me”.

I was struck again by the text for the 4th and 5th movements again last night and wanted to share them as my Sabbath Poems for this week. Enjoy!

IV. “What Man Tells Me”

Text: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
Translation: Larry Rothe

O Mensch! Gib Acht!

Oh man, take heed!
What does deep midnight say?
I slept!
I have woken from a deep dream!
The world is deep—
Deeper than the day had thought!
Deep is the pain!
Joy deeper still than heart’s sorrow!
Pain says: Vanish!
Yet all joy aspires to eternity,
To deep, deep eternity.

V. “What the Angels Tell Me”

Text: from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Translation: Larry Rothe

Three angels sang a sweet song.
It resounded throughout heaven;
They also rejoiced
That Peter was free of sin.

For as the Lord Jesus sat down at the table
And ate the evening meal with his twelve disciples,
The Lord Jesus said, “Why are you standing here?
When I look at you, you cry.”

“And shouldn’t I cry, you kind God?”
You shouldn’t cry!
“I have broken the Ten Commandments;
I go and cry bitterly.”
You shouldn’t cry!
“Oh come, and have mercy on me!”

“If you’ve broken the Ten Commandments,
Fall on your knees and pray to God.
Just love God always,
And you will have heavenly joy.”

Heavenly joy is a blessed city,
Heavenly joy, which has no end;
Heavenly joy was prepared for Peter
By Jesus, and for everyone’s salvation.

Translation copyright © 2003 by the San Francisco Symphony

Sabbath Poem (Pablo Neruda) July 27, 2007

Butterfly Feet, originally uploaded by estelucy.

To the Foot from its Child
by Pablo Neruda; translated by Alastair Reid

The child’s foot is not yet aware it’s a foot,
and would like to be a butterfly or an apple.

But in time, stones and bits of glass,
streets, ladders,
and the paths in the rough earth
go on teaching the foot that it cannot fly,
cannot be a fruit bulging on the branch.
Then, the child’s foot
is defeated, falls
in the battle,
is a prisoner
condemned to live in a shoe.

Bit by bit, in that dark,
it grows to know the world in its own way,
out of touch with its fellow, enclosed,
feeling out life like a blind man.

These soft nails
of quartz, bunched together,
grow hard, and change themselves
into opaque substance, hard as horn,
and the tiny, petalled toes of the child
grow bunched and out of trim,
take on the form of eyeless reptiles
with triangular heads, like worms.
Later, they grow calloused
and are covered
with the faint volcanoes of death,
a coarsening hard to accept.

But this blind thing walks
without respite, never stopping
for hour after hour,
the one foot, the other,
now the man’s,
now the woman’s,
up above,
down below,
through fields, mines,
markets and ministries,
backwards,
far afield, inward,
forward,
this foot toils in its shoe,
scarcely taking time
to bare itself in love or sleep;
it walks, they walk,
until the whole man chooses to stop.

And then it descended
underground, unaware,
for there, everything, everything was dark.
It never knew it had ceased to be a foot
or if they were burying it so that it could fly
or so that it could become
an apple.

* One of my favorite poems in high school, from a volume I had (with Spanish on one side and English on the other) called A New Decade (Poems 1958-1967)

(more…)

Sabbath Poem (Bozarth) July 5, 2007

The small plot of ground
by Alla Renee Bozarth

The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected

to stay forever
the same.
Earth changes,
and home becomes different
places.

You took flesh
from clay
but the clay
did not come
from just one place.

To feel alive,
important, and safe,
know your own waters
and hills, but know
more

You have stars in your bones
and oceans
in blood.

You have opposing
terrain in each eye
you belong to the land
and sky of your first cry,
you belong to infinity.

* from Earth Prayers, Edited by Elizabeth Roberts

* We had this book when I was growing up and I read this poem at a DEC hearing in Farmersville, New York (40 miles from where I grew up) regarding the proposed largest landfill in the Northeast. That hearing happened in March 1994. The has fight continued for more than ten years and now the dump is all but defeated!

* I saw this poem quoted today and googled the author, only to realize that she is an Episcopal priest who was part of the Philadelphia Eleven, the first crop of women “irregularly” ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1974, inlcuding Carter Hayard and Jeanette Piccard, whom we discussed at Transmission last night.

Creation Poem (Snake) June 28, 2007

by Bowie Snodgrass

Featuring Genesis 2:24 and 3:24, JPS trans

ah my

yes

the fine art

of creation

let it be so bountiful!

into dry dust, breathe breath

god made the food garden

     a river with four branches

     and declared that from

hence, a man leaves his father

and mother and clings to his wife

so that they become one flesh

the mother of all the living

listened for good and evil

     ate apple after serpent

     and caused the couple

to be expelled outside Eden where

the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning

sword wait to guard the way to the tree of life

Sabbath Poem (Howe) May 31, 2007

I had thougth about posting this poem by Fanny Howe (who wrote a collection of essays that I included in a “Best Contemporary Theology” meme), but then hedged, doubted, waiting. Today, I checked into Faith House’s blog and saw their recent Sabbath Poem by Neruda and thought this must be a sign… these poems are cosmic kissing cousins.

Mad God, mad thought
Take me for a walk
Stalk me. Made God,
Wake me with your words.
Believe in what I said

Just Shadows
Shadows on sheets
Grass, seed . . .

Push my anguish down―
Coffee, smokes & creams―
Tongue-dainties
To scare compulsion away
Compulsion to die

–
from The Quietist (1992)

Sabbath Poem (St. Teresa of Avila) May 10, 2007

I Loved What I Could Love

I had a natural passion for fine clothes, excellent food, and
lively conversation about all matters that concern
the heart still alive. And even a passion
about my own
looks.

Vanities: they do not exist.

Have you ever walked across a stream stepping on
rocks so not to spoil a pair of shoes?

All we can touch, swallow, or say
aids in our crossing to God
and helps unveil the
soul.

Life smooths us, rounds, perfects, as does the river the stone,
and there is no place our Beloved is not flowing
though the current’s force you
may not always
like.

Our passions help to lift us.

I loved what I could love until I held God,
for then—all things—every world
disappeared.

* From Daniel Ladinsky’s Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (New York: Penguin Compass, 2002), page 292.
* Read at May 8 Graduation Party / House Blessing Ritual for Katharine Lee
* More about St. Theresa of Avila (1515-1582)

How Do We Know God Loves Us? Readings April 30, 2007

hey ya’ll,

I’m looking for one more Bible selection to go with the four readings below (from the Hebrew Bible a plus). these will be part of our Wed nite rite, whose working title is: How do we know God loves us?

i’m also looking for some tunes to put on a soundtrack while people are exploring the stations. with lyrics or without.

thanks!

• Matthew 22:34-40
• Anne Carson, “My Religion”
• Hafiz, “The Sun Never Says”
• Peter Rollins, from How (Not) to Speak of God

(more…)

Roof Gardens of Babylon April 25, 2007

By Bowie Snodgrass

On the Euphrates, down by the river of Babylon,
they sat down and wept, and wept for you, Zion.

Held captive during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign,
they wrote scripture in the world’s largest city.

But even the most powerful human in the world
did a small good deed for the woman he loved.

As the story goes, Nebuchadnezzar, for his wife,
planted a World Wonder: hanging roof gardens.

I hear they’re thinking of green roofs for NYC;
what a great idea, I say, growing things here.

Imagine flying over that in a plane, a sea of green:
flowers, moss, vine, trees, birds, butterflies, bees.

Fruits of the earth to eat, natural cool and warm,
cleaner air and playgrounds for God’s creatures.

We best never forget the history that happened
nor the dreams that inspire human imagination.

* Read about the Green Roof movement

* Check out the Gaia Institute NY

“The Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the walls of Babylon (near present-day Baghdad in Iraq) were considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. ”
- Read more about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

* Please say a special prayer for my brother, Peter, Ike’s brother, Joel, and all the military personnel currently stationed in Iraq. Please pray for all Iraqis, that they may soon have peace in their lands.