I Am Not What I Was

Posted on October 21, 2018 by randamir

This is a roundel based on Jeremiah 18:1-12.
In the poem I make use of two Bible illustrations: Jeremiah at the potter’s house and Jesus raising Lazarus. In the same manner that God formed man from the dust, Jesus announces the coming of new creation by raising one given over to the dust.

If it’s helpful, you may listen to me read the roundel via the player below.

Said the clay to the hand who cut him out,
To the Potter who pulled him from decay
Smelling of earth from death wrapped about,
“I am not what I was,” said the clay.

Healing never came, for the Potter’s delay
Let me lie, untouched, harden, dry out;
Shaping without hands was his preferred way.

Time’s wheel spun four days when the mouth
Of the Potter spoke into where I lay
In my cold kiln cried, “Come forth!” with a shout.
And “I am, not what I was” said the clay.

© Randall Edwards 2018.
This poem is for Christ’s church. If it is helpful, please feel free to copy or reprint in church bulletins, read aloud, or repost. I only ask that an attribution be cited to myself (Randall Edwards) and this blog (backwardmutters.com). Thanks.
Artwork: By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Not Use

Posted on October 14, 2017 by randamir

A roundel regarding a rejection letter received from a journal for a recent poetry submission.

If helpful, you may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

“Not use”, your note, written back to me
On my poem by which I deduce
That your statement of merit, impartial decree
Means my words are unwanted, no use.

This, my rejection; you mean no abuse.
You’re being efficient not crappy,
Not poetic, just clear, not abstruse.

But these words keep coming, won’t let me be—
Whisper in rhymes, with phrases seduce
To turn the lock, use imagination’s key,
I try to resist, but it’s no use.

Does a Man Gain?

Posted on March 19, 2017 by randamir

In the congregation where I pastor, we are working through Luke’s gospel on Sunday mornings and walking with Jesus to Jerusalem. This week we are looking at Peter’s confession and Jesus’ call to discipleship in Luke 9.

Last night the question which Jesus asks in Luke 9.25 “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” struck me as a wisdom question, and mirrors the question of the teacher in Ecclesiastes who asked, “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3).

Both the question of profit and and gain ask what is worth spending your life on. In this roundel I imagine one wrestling with the diminishing returns which always accompany idolatry and the question of whether the secondary goods which we pursue can become the primary means of our satisfaction and fulfillment.

If it’s helpful you may listen to me read the roundel via the player below.

By all the toil with which I pour
Myself into work tending this soil,
Spending life weeding, doing these chores,
What does man gain by all his toil?

Make the most, I promised, let nothing spoil.
“Over my dead body, I’ll not fail,” I swore,
Yet what I seek, my work seems to foil.

I’ll not let it stand. I’ll settle the score;
This irony of work makes my blood boil.
Why do I get less, even though giving more?
What does man gain by all his toil?

© Randy Edwards 2017.
This poem is for Christ’s church. If it is helpful, please feel free to copy or reprint in church bulletins, read aloud, or repost. I only ask that an attribution be cited to myself (Randall Edwards) and this blog (backwardmutters.com). Thanks.

artwork: Gustave Dore

Not Significant

Posted on March 3, 2017 by randamir

I really enjoy roundels, which is a poetic form that is concise and allows the writer to turn a phrase several ways.

In this roundel, I am working out my sadness and surprise at a review which a friend received on an e-commerce site from a book of poetry he’d written. “Not significant” as a review is just so…, wow. I was also greatly convicted about the times I’ve critiqued other’s creativity in ways that have shut them down rather than encourage and build them up. Here’s to repentance.

If it’s helpful, you may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

“Not significant”, two words typed clear and plain,
So austere and simple, not very clarificant
Is it odd that I can’t get it out of my brain?
Is one’s anything “Not significant”?

This critique, unengaged, is hardly edificant
Rather than help or try to explain
I imagine they stung, and were not, “not significant.”

But the spell you weave in your poetic quatrain
Is bread cast on waters, is gold, so mundificant!
For your words bless, make my crazy, sane
When the world says, you’re not significant.

A Human Doing

Posted on December 14, 2016 by randamir

Here’s a roundel of sorts that came to me this morning. It’s a confession and call to be less about the list and more about the life.

A human doing, gettin’ ‘er done
Tasks and emails, each morning reviewing
Knocking it out, not by any outdone.
I have become a human doing.

Reputation overtakes, my morning overruns
The dear duty and office which brings me renewing
Straight from sleep into work, my day is begun
As a human doing.

And round in circles the workflow pursuing;
Running past Your gifts, missing loved ones.
My being by performance is tied up and undone
I have become a human doing.