Today’s November Poem a Day prompt is “Window.” In recognition of World Diabetes Day, here his one is in honor of my hero.
Peak through a window Into the life of my hero, Who, since the age of seven, Has had a cellular thirst, Who has stuck her fingers So many times That her fingertips can bleed With just a squeeze. Peak through this window. What do you see? I’ll tell you, she Is one on whom the smile Has remained In spite of it all To this very day. © Randall Edwards 2021
The prompt for today’s, November Poem a Day Challenge is “a pet poem.”
I’ve been working through the book of Job, and this passage caught my attention. In the Lord’s final words to Job, the Lord addresses the monsters of the world which Job has faced. These monsters are imagined and embodied in the figures of Behemoth and Leviathan. The Lord shows to Job something of his own purposes for the two. After Eric Ortland’s commentary, Piercing Leviathan, only such a revelation, I think, would warrant Job’s response when he speaks of those things “too wonderful for me, which I did not understand” (Job 42:3).
Job 41:1-5 reads,
“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words? Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls?"
It is a striking picture. The Lord promises to subdue Leviathan and to make him no more harmless than a house pet. And so, Leviathan is the subject of my pet. You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.
Tied like bait and fastened to a tree He descended, cast himself to the depths Of this world’s chaos and calamity, Sank ‘neath its waves and breathed his last breath. Swallowed by the gaping mouth of death, In the dark of its belly he lay Until the barbed hook of justice set On the morning of the third day. Holding his rope in the beast's jaw fixed fast, The one who was drowned, went down, arose! Bursting death’s belly, the scorned and outcast Led Leviathan out by the nose. In our loving, Redeemer’s victory, The fears we fear, the terrors and threats Are of no more concern for you and me Than a bird a young boy might get. And Leviathan, that dragon of death, Is led for your girls on a leash like a pet. © Randall Edwards 2021.
The artwork is available via Wikimedia Commons which notes that the image is, God fishing Leviathan, using Jesus Christ’s human nature as bait. Jesus is depicted crucified, at the bottom of a w:Jesse Tree. Miniature from Hortus deliciarum. between 1167 and 1185. w:Herrad of Landsberg. I think it’s pretty cool that the metaphor and imagery which I imagined was captured 800 years earlier at least by a 12th Century Abbess. Hope I get to meet her someday.
After this year’s Hutchmoot Homebound, Rabbit Room‘s online conference, an opportunity was offered to participate in a collaborative art project called Pass the Piece. The project randomly pairs two artist. One begins a piece of artwork and sends it to the second artist to complete. I received a piece from artist Dawn Waters Baker titled “Living in the Land of Uz,” and I responded to her piece which you can view and read more about HERE.
Just this week, I sent my Pass the Piece artwork to a visual artist who works with a variety of mediums. A dear and patient friend with just the right tools has helped me to create something to serve as a palette of sorts upon which my friend also engraved a poem I wrote which serves as my part of this piece. (Thank you Rick!) I do hope that artist to whom I’ve sent my piece can work with it. I can’t wait to see what she does with it.
It may be no surprise to those in the congregation I pastor, but I’ve based my poem on Job which has been the subject of sermon series as of late. Job is a book with which I have had a familiarity, but it, just like suffering in general, is not something I can readily get my head around. I think I’ve gotten a better handle on Job, and I hope I have a more honest and faithful and hopeful understanding of suffering. The poem I wrote is based on Job 38:1-7 which reads,
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?.
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
(ESV)
You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.
I have no answers, Lord, Only questions. Like, why come with a storm Into the chaos of my storm? How is one to know which is the help, Which whirlwind is caused by sin, Which rescue or finish me? And why have you stood off Silently? I have no answers, Only questions. No, I was not there When you laid the foundation. It was not by my skill or strength That it was made square and plumb. I did not stretch out a line its length To measure Your wisdom and love. I did not pour into the earth with my hands The footing upon which Every last thing that stands Now stands. I did not mark the depth, breadth, and height Of Your cornerstone’s wisdom. I did not lay it in place By it make all true and right. Nor did I choose the keystone Which holds the arch, fills the breach, Holds in place the pillars of sky, Holds all these things leaning together, Even the answers just out of reach As I lean towards You, One Whom I thought I knew, One Who is now unknown, But where else can I go With my questions? What was it like When the morning stars sang In the first day’s, pre-dawn light? What was the sound Of the song which You taught? Who led the heavenly band? Who called the contradance Who led the grand March, the real and swing of the Allemande Right and left? How did the cosmos resound When the sons of God shouted for joy? What was the noise When the lifeless void Gave way to the dawn-- The break of day? What was that like: Sound filled with sparks, When delight became Light? I only have questions. Who are you, who now comes To me in the ruin of ash, To the dust of the death in which I sit? What do you know of loss, What to you did faithfulness cost, And will I ever see the point of this? © Randall Edwards 2021
The Day Five poem prompt was to write a poem using the form of the Golden Shovel. I chose Christian Wiman’s poem, “From a Window” as the source for my golden shovel. You may read Christian Wiman’s poem HERE, and you may listen to him read it below. My poem based on his below that and is entitled, The Sudden Surprise of Joy.
Lying in a hospital bed fearing the incurable, A diagnosis of terminal illness and Facing that future unbelieving, I cried out for healing. But not believing in God or gods or doctors or any Thing but the awful truth That there was nothing more but To face death and die. The Bitterness of that truth Drove out all the happiness of Living, leaving only the grieving. Broken to pieces on a mechanical bed, I Looked out the window and saw There in the winter sun, bright and bare, a Dormant maple tree And something more inside It filled my vision and grew as from within— a Tree within a tree. And then I saw it rise, Saw it roll kaleidoscopically Colored shapes fluttered as Though the tree were alive, as if Spring had sprung and flung the Living feathered leaves Merely for the beauty or for me who had Only thought himself good as dead but was now livelier As the sudden surprise of joy dispelled the ghosts.
Today marks the beginning of the November Poem a Day Challenge. Today’s first prompt provided by Poetry Pub is “Beginning.” It is hard for me to write a poem about beginning when T.S. Eliot’s lines from “Little Giding” are all I can think about. He says, “What we call the beginning is often the end… And to make and end is to make a beginning.”
Here’s an attempt to get things started.
A beginning may not be the first step, But it may be the next, the one after the last, After you’ve given up on past Regrets and resentments And let go your demands For the outcomes of future plans. Beginnings begin with an end. And with it a new start: Like rising with the morning, Back around to where you’ve begun, Again make the coffee, feed the cat, Read the paper in your chair, And watch for the sun As you sit in the quiet with One Who neither slumbers nor sleeps, Has no beginning or ending. Some day, the endings shall end, And in that last beginning, The beginnings will never end. And every moment which we marked in time-- Come to us, arriving, and then passing by, Will be one in an eternal present, Not moving to, through, then past, But moving into always, and we Will never outlast the beginning. © Randall Edwards 2021.
with backward mutters of dissevering power 