May 2015
I've always loved this quote from "October" by Louise Gluck:
|
...And still, you are fortunate:
The ideal burns in you like a fever. Or not like a fever, like a second heart. |
I love the revision of the third line, which takes the speaker's passion for poetry from a sickness, an overwhelming source of delusions, to the redoubled root of love, a driving force of life. That's how poetry has always been for me, a second heart that burns like a fever —
and yes, because of this passion for poetry, I am fortunate.
and yes, because of this passion for poetry, I am fortunate.
The Old Evangelist’s Prayer
After “l’Idee” by Joachim DuBellay
Lord Jesus, if my life’s just mist to you,
appearing and then burning off like that,
if all my years aren’t much for looking at,
going quick as crickets—and if it’s true,
Christ Jesus, nothing a man makes can last:
Why leave me with her wedding rings, alone--
with my T.V. meals and this lonesome dial tone?
Fly me home from this trailer. Take me fast.
Up in heaven—there’s the life. That’s where
I could go back to sleeping through the night,
and I won’t worry for missing a tv show
with the Oak Ridge Boys on the radio. Up there,
Lord, breathing Your easy air, all things set right,
I could forgive what happened here below.
The Truth of the Body
We skeptics do not doubt what we believe--
the bridge is falling down, we’ve lost the keys,
so now, it’s true: Nobody will survive.
Descending in fire: Nuclear warheads leave
Earth decimated—the fallout, then the freeze.
We have no doubt, we skeptics. We believe
in the flood: a global warming that will drive
the oceans inland, the risen salt of the seas—.
We know it’s true. Nobody will survive.
Pale horse of plagues: contagions we conceive
in labs—flown loose, no cure for the disease,
no doubt. But what we skeptics can’t believe?
His second coming— Jesus Christ, alive--
come back to raise the dead, to bring us peace.
Nobody but the righteous will survive,
so the mystery of faith reveals a reprieve:
Heavenly life, if we fall upon our knees—.
We skeptics have no doubts. We must believe
the truth of the body: Nothing will survive.
After “l’Idee” by Joachim DuBellay
Lord Jesus, if my life’s just mist to you,
appearing and then burning off like that,
if all my years aren’t much for looking at,
going quick as crickets—and if it’s true,
Christ Jesus, nothing a man makes can last:
Why leave me with her wedding rings, alone--
with my T.V. meals and this lonesome dial tone?
Fly me home from this trailer. Take me fast.
Up in heaven—there’s the life. That’s where
I could go back to sleeping through the night,
and I won’t worry for missing a tv show
with the Oak Ridge Boys on the radio. Up there,
Lord, breathing Your easy air, all things set right,
I could forgive what happened here below.
The Truth of the Body
We skeptics do not doubt what we believe--
the bridge is falling down, we’ve lost the keys,
so now, it’s true: Nobody will survive.
Descending in fire: Nuclear warheads leave
Earth decimated—the fallout, then the freeze.
We have no doubt, we skeptics. We believe
in the flood: a global warming that will drive
the oceans inland, the risen salt of the seas—.
We know it’s true. Nobody will survive.
Pale horse of plagues: contagions we conceive
in labs—flown loose, no cure for the disease,
no doubt. But what we skeptics can’t believe?
His second coming— Jesus Christ, alive--
come back to raise the dead, to bring us peace.
Nobody but the righteous will survive,
so the mystery of faith reveals a reprieve:
Heavenly life, if we fall upon our knees—.
We skeptics have no doubts. We must believe
the truth of the body: Nothing will survive.
©2015 Anna Ashley McHugh