The Elevation

Today I offer another poem, this time of recent composition.  I haven't much to say about it except that it follows, in some measure, the speaker's stream of consciousness and is meant to be more a compilation of the speaker's thoughts at the moment of the Elevation than anything too heavily theological (not that I object to such things, though!).  Thus, without further ado:

+JMJ

The Elevation

By Caitlin Clancy

Copyright 2012

Sweet smoke-clouds waft over the silence –

A stillness pervades eager air –

As lifted above the high table,

Of Presence a few are aware.

O halo of light in hard darkness!

White purity over fine gold!

How comes it, my Lord, that You dwell here?

But of this no man is yet told

Gracious gift of the Father to mankind –

Sons of Adam and Atreus all!

Crippled with cravings corrosive

And cursed with the death of the Fall

Yet strangely is given, this goodness –

Upon tongues of traitors He rests

Calling in voice of thin silence

Whom Angels taste not nor request

Thus man in his desert partaketh

In Manna he never deserved

Into his house there descendeth

The one only who perished unswerved

Then round the stone table they gather

The ones who deep mystr’y behold

Eternity blending with time -

Eclipse of new, ancient and old

Simplicity of Godly glory

Comes down like the fall of soft dew

And hear now the words from the Logos -

Bold, good, wild, utter, and True!

Does not our blood rush in triumph?

Do not our souls pound yet amain?

Here in our midst is Existence!

And Beauty Himself is not vain.

Exulting – an ecstatic vigor!

Truly each, every has read –

Receiving for once is Becoming;

These children are raised from the dead.

King’s blood burns surely within them –

Divinity’s untainted flow,

And through dimm’ed veil of the senses

Perceiving the One whom they know.

The silence gives way to proud organ

And fades in the thoughts of men’s time

But still in the silence there whispers

One constant and eternal rhyme –

And only they shall foreknow it

Who took what they, unworthy, love –

And rev’renced with filial wonder

A child, a lord, and a dove.

The Madness to the Method

+JMJ

Pardon my pause in posting!  Life has been on triple speed and as of late I've not had much time to pursue the art of blogging.  Nevertheless, here is a poem I wrote for my English professor last semester when she required me to use a particular analytical method on a paper.  While the Method was misery, the poem it produced - in the style of T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - was, I think, well worth it.  

The Madness to the Method: A Highly Imperfect Poem for a Highly Infuriating Tool

By Caitlin Clancy

Let us go then, you and I,

Our good senses to defy,

And use methodic madness

For the English teacher’s gladness.

With its tedium

Of broken argument,

The Method wanders with insidious intent,

Into the minds of unsuspecting youth

And rubs its claws

Upon the light of truth.

But do not ask what

More cannot be done –

For, quicker than words run,

There will be time

To murder, uncreate,

That awful thing,

Which, dropped onto your plate,

Has, questioning,

Beat you much

But seldom given aid –

And drowned the voice

Of muse-like fair mermaid

It seems to me that Method

Is a pin

That sticks the panicked poet

To a wall –

In jest, perhaps,

Or some half-cruel sport,

Where aching writer cannot make retort

And I’ll confess me very unsurprised

To find Method on a table, etherized,

And hear its dying voice recall,

Yes, drowning with a dying fall –

But I shall not much miss it,

No, not at all.

Omnipotence & Analysis

+JMJ

The following poem came into my head some time ago as I was getting up from that blessed state which kindergartners shun and college students find indispensable: the nap.  (Which, now that I think of it, may explain the presence of sleep reference.)  While most of my daydreams and half-waking musings are not worth a ha'penny, I thought this one worth the quill and ink.  I offer it for your judgment alongside a bit of my own analysis, included below. 

“Omnipotence”

By Caitlin M. Clancy
Copyright 2011, 2012

The last drop of ink

From a weary pen

The snarl of beasts

In the lion’s den

The grandeur of Places

Both far and deep

The placid breath’s rhythm –

A child’s sleep.

For who can decide,

Or else can see,

The meaning that one

At once is three?

Who can know,

Or who recall,

The sweet of wine,

The sting of gall?

Only Him

Who never sleeps

Yet who in anguish,

Bloody, weeps.

Recall Him, world,

And do not turn –

Your life will last

Unless you spurn.

To give a bit of my own explanation/analysis: 

The title that has been applied thus far refers to the first series of images – all things that God can see at once, though we cannot (not just in terms of place, but of time as well, since God exists outside of time).  The images include both minute details, like a child’s breathing, as well as things that exist in a broader, more obvious scope ("places/Both far and deep").  The pen, besides being the instrument of the writer, is a relatively modern image while the lion’s den is from long ago – from the story of Daniel. The second half of the poem (“For who can decide…”) asks, in essence, who else but God can know and see everything?  Who but he is Omnipotent?  The final part of the poem (“Recall…”) turns to the audience – the world – and offers a solemn reminder of the choice the world has to make between eternal life and its alternative. (Also, just a detail I happened to notice and find interesting: the first image can show both that God sees things past and present, and also that God’s eye is, so to speak, upon me, the writer, even as I compose the poem.  And upon you as you read it.  Bears pondering, no?)

The Dance of Midnight Noon

+JMJ

The Dance of Midnight Noon

By Caitlin Clancy

Copyright 2012

The moon

Upon the silver lake

Bids the mid-night

Faeries wake –

Softly, softly!

Stir no leaf –

Bring no mortals

To our heath!

So whisp’ring wind

Wisps and blows

The beam-bathed waves

Where there grows

A dance, a hunt,

A play, a thrill –

Solemn, silent,

Silent, still.

There comes no sound

Of lathe or bill,

Yet war is fought

On yonder hill

And on the beam-bathed

Bath of beasts

The light-foot nymphs

Of woodlands feast

They drink the moon

And take the dark

And rest white hands

On willow-bark;

Ten thousand ships

They launch and glide

In the breath of

Even-tide [1]

And noiseless knock

And break and hark –

The fight is long

While it is dark.

But soon the waning,

Sleeping spark

Of northern star

Fades in the arc

Of coming grey

And fading moon –

The last farewell

Of midnight noon.

And as the dark

Becomes the light

The mortal’s day

Becomes their night

And all is as

It was before –

Save the whisper,

Evermore:

Softly, softly!

Stir no thought –

Lest those of mortal flesh

Be brought.

---

[1] Refers both to evening – or night in this case – and also to the calm “tide” of the lake.

Of Mortality and Poetry

Today I brought out a poem that I wrote earlier this year and hadn't thought about in quite a while.  I'll not give an explanation of it at present - I think it is sometimes best to encounter a piece of writing on your own first and plumb the depths of thought behind it at a later date.  Nevertheless, I hope you will read it and, perhaps, find something in it that resonates with you.    

+JMJ

Of Mortality and Poetry

By Caitlin Clancy

Copyright 2012

In silence spin we

Golden lays,

The web to hold

Our works and days; 

In senseless time,

Unspoken hour,

The fruits of minds

Burst forth and flower,

But moments pass

And then are gone –

And who are we

To linger on? 

So humble pass we,

Leaving lays,

For silent works

And golden days.  

Xavier

The following is a very short story I drafted this past spring and read at last Friday's Agora Poetry, Song & Story Night.  (For those of you who don't know,  Agora nights are delightful & enriching cultural "get togethers" put on at regular intervals by the faculty and students of Belmont Abbey College.  Should you ever have the chance to attend one, I highly recommend you do.)

+JMJ

Xavier

By Caitlin M. Clancy

Copyright 2012

            A bright shimmer flashed across the rim of the sickle moon, tracing the pale crescent’s otherworldly edge with a fairy finger of light.  Below, the little watcher sighed, shifting his restless, tousled head among the fallen fir boughs.  It was quiet tonight.  Where are you going, son?  he heard his father ask again, the kind, rolling tones, drawn up as by a net from a fathomless sea, rising obediently from the recesses of his mind; a mind that, though young, was already deep and broad.  A mind like a vast, peaceful ocean at night – an ocean visible only to the watchful ear of a silent soul; an endless pool of breathing waves detectable only by its steady, thunderous tide washing in on unseen shores.  A mind, in fact, awake.   

            Xavier drew a steady breath of the cool, clear night air blowing in from off the lake.  It tasted of pine and fresh water and even, he imagined, of cloud.  He gazed up at the moon, his dark eyes bright with the sliver’s reflection, white as pearl yet sharp as the blade of a knife.  That, he decided, was why faeries danced of old.  That was why satyrs reveled in the dark of ancient woods and why nymphs crept out and played about the boughs of sacred groves, whispering their songs of joy and fear.  That was why he now lay with his own back upon fallen fir boughs, arms tucked behind his head, and thought with a boy’s mind the thoughts of men.  That, too, was why he spent hours silent, alone in the black woods, and listened for their voices – the voices of that marvelous company that walked the world before man dared to tread beyond his doorposts.  That was why he lay listening – listening, and longing, too, for another voice, a voice that would harmonize the clamorous murmurings of the ages, a voice that would teach them all to speak.  A voice he knew had come. 

            Where are you going, son?  Xavier recalled the room – small, old, and dim.  He remembered the touch of the doorjamb’s wet wood and the feel of the worn rug beneath his sandals.  He remembered, too, how, though his eager feet remained planted in the flickering light of the room, his hand had already plunged outside, where it rested, hidden, in the sable folds of night’s own cloak, long past the half-light cast by the fire.  Where are you going, son? his father asked, his shadow-veiled face calm and his imperceptible eyes deep, looking for all the world – and perhaps for something else, too – the fuller image of his child.  Where are you going? 

            To find it, Xavier replied, watching as a small, knowing smile touched his father’s features and played on his thoughtful visage; his face was now almost entirely hidden in the dusky light.  Go, then, he said, I am here for you.  Xavier took a step outside into the breezy night and the wind immediately reached out to ruffle his earthen-brown curls.  Xavier nodded, staring ahead into the massive, barely distinguishable ebony forms that were the trees.  Yes, he would go.  And perhaps he would understand.  And he would listen.  Speak, then, that I may know you, he thought, pleading silently with the voice he longed for, the voice he loved.  Your servant hears.  

And Now, A Cultural Interlude...

Plato said that “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” *  In light of this most wise observation - and because I love the violin - here is an incredibly beautiful piece that a friend of mine introduced me to just yesterday:

 Bach's Chaconne for Solo Violin, Part 1

and

Bach's Chaconne for Solo Violin, Part 2

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.

* Thanks to http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/879.Plato for this quote.