In the beginning were the words

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In the Beginning

Were the Words

A Look at the First Chaptersof Genesis through Poetry

David W. Jones


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The life and power of poetryconsists in its ability to step out of itself,

tear off a fragment of religion,And then return into itself and absorb it.

Friedrich Schlegel

A Poets affair is with God,to whom he is accountable,and of whom is his reward.

Robert Browning


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ContentsIntroduction ...................................................................................... 5Chapter One: Words ........................................................................ 6

Chapter Two: Good ....................................................................... 10Chapter Three: Wild ...................................................................... 16Chapter Four: Work....................................................................... 19Chapter Five: Rest .......................................................................... 23Chapter Six: Responsibility ........................................................... 25Chapter Seven: Relationship ......................................................... 27Chapter Eight: Authority .............................................................. 32Chapter Nine: Regret ..................................................................... 34Chapter Ten: Hiding ...................................................................... 38Chapter Eleven: Mortal ................................................................. 42Chapter Twelve: Journey ............................................................... 50Chapter Thirteen: Parenting ......................................................... 56Chapter Fourteen: Absence .......................................................... 64Chapter Fifteen : Presence ............................................................ 68


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Then he told me, In the part I was reading itsays the Word was in the beginning, and thatsright. I used to think water was first, but if youlisten carefully you will hear that the words are

underneath the water.Thats because you are a preacher first andthen a fisherman, I told him. If you ask Paul, hewill tell you that the words are formed out ofwater.

No, my fathersaid, you are not listeningcarefully. The water runs over the words.

Norman MacleanA River Runs Through It


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Introduction

The following poems are some of my favorites.The intention of this book is to share these personaltreasures with my children and close friends, to show

how the poetry can be used to study life andscripture, and to promote both these poems and thepoets who wrote them.

I no more have permission from publisher orpoet to use these verses than I have authorizationfrom Adam, Eve or the writers of Genesis to put theirstories here. As a result, this book is for promotionand not profit. If you have found your hands upon a

copy, consider yourself a cherished soul. If you findin this book a poem that speaks to you, then take thetime to explore the artists other works.

David W. Jones2009


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Chapter One: Words

John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and theWord was with God, and the Word was God.

Genesis 1: 3 Then God said, Let there be light; andthere was light. 4And God saw that the light wasgood

Psalm 33: 6 By the word of the LORDthe heavens

were made,and all their host by the breath of his mouth. 9 For hespoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and itstood firm.

The Song of CreationRig-Veda(Translated by F. Max Muller)

Then was not non-existent nor existent:there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.

What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter?Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal:no sign was there, the days and nights divider.

That one thing, breathless, breathed by its ownnature:

Apart from it was nothing whatsoever


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The Creation

James Weldon Johnson

AND God stepped out on space,And He looked around and said,"I'm lonely --

I'll make me a world."

And far as the eye of God could see

Darkness covered everything,Blacker than a hundred midnightsDown in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,And the light broke,And the darkness rolled up on one side,And the light stood shining on the other,

And God said, "That's good!"


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On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at SouthHighD.C. Berry

BeforeI opened my mouthI noticed them sitting thereas orderly as frozen fishin a package.

Slowly water began to fill the roomthough I did not notice it

till it reachedmy ears

and then I heard the soundsof fish in an aquariumand I knew that though I hadtried to drown them

with my wordsthat they had only opened up

like gills for themand let me in.

Together we swam around the roomlike thirty tails whacking wordstill the bell randpuncturinga hole in the door

where we all leaked out

They went to another classI suppose and I home

where Queen Elizabethmy cat met meand licked my fins

till they were hands again.


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Chapter Two: Good

Genesis 1: 3 Then God said, Let there be light; andthere was light. 4And God saw that the light wasgood

Lost

David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside youAre not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,Must ask permission to know it and be known.The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, sayingHere.No two trees are the same to Raven.No two branches are the same to Wren.If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knowsWhere you are. You must let it find you.


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God's WorldEdna St. Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!Thy mists, that roll and rise!Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour! That gaunt cragTo crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,But never knew I this:Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart,Lord, I do fearThou'st made the world too beautiful this year;My soul is all but out of me,let fallNo burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

When I Heard the Learn'd AstronomerWalt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columnsbefore me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,

divide, and measure them,When I sitting heard the astronomer where helectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,In the mystical moist night-air, and from time totime,Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.


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Red Clay BluesLangston Hughes & Richard Wright

I miss that red clay, Lawd, INeed to feel it in my shoes.Says miss that red clay, Lawd, INeed to feel it in my shoes.I want to get to Georgia cause IGot them red clay blues.

Pavements hard on my feet, Im

Tired o this concrete street.Pavements hard on my feet, ImTired ol this city street.Goin back to Georgia whereThat red clay cant be beat.

I want to tramp in the red mud, Lawd, andFeel the red clay round my toes.

I want to wade in that red mud,Feel that red clay suckin at my toes.I want my little farm back and IDont care where that landlord goes.

I want to be in Georgia, when theBig storm starts to blow.

Yes, I want to be in Georgia when that

Big storm starts to blow.I want to see the landlords runnin cause IWonder where they gonna go!

I got them red clay blues.


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What The Dog Perhaps HearsLisel Mueller

If an inaudible whistleblown between our lipscan send him home to us,then silence is perhapsthe sound of spiders breathingand roots mining the earth;it may be asparagus heaving,headfirst, into the light

and the long brown soundof cracked cups, when it happens.We would like to ask the dogif there is a continuous whir

because the child in the housekeeps growing, if the snakereally stretches full length

without a click and the sun

breaks through clouds withouta decibel of effort,whether in autumn, when the treesdry up their wells, there isn't a shuddertoo high for us to hear.

What is it like up thereabove the shut-off level

of our simple ears?For us there was no birth cry,the newborn bird is suddenly here,the egg broken, the nest alive,and we heard nothing when the world changed.


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Sayings of the BlindWilliam Stafford

Feeling is believing.

Mountains dont exist. But their slopes do.

Little people have low voices.

All things, even rocks, make a little noise.

The silence back of all sound is called the sky.

There is a big stranger in town called the sun.He doesnt speak to usbut puts out a hand.

Night opens a door into a cellaryou can smell it coming.

On Sundays everyone stands farther apart.

Velvet feels black.

Meeting cement is never easy.

What do they mean when they say night is gloomy?

Edison didnt invent much.

Whenever you wake up its morning.

Names have a flavor.


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The FirstWendell Berry

The first man who whistledthought he had a wren in his mouth.He went around all day

with his lips puckered,afraid to swallow.

Psalm 100

All Lands Summoned to Praise God

A Psalm of thanksgiving.

1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.2 Worship the LORDwith gladness;

come into his presence with singing.

3 Know that the LORDis God.It is he that made us, and we are his;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,and his courts with praise.Give thanks to him, bless his name.

5 For the LORDis good;his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.


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The TygerWilliam Blake

Tyger Tyger. burning bright,In the forests of the night;What immortal hand or eye.Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.Burnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat.What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?What the anvil? what dread grasp.Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spearsAnd watered heaven with their tears:Did he smile His work to see?Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?


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The Peace of Wild ThingsWendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heronfeeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


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Chapter Four: Work

Genesis 2: 15 The LORDGod took the man and puthim in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

Be StrongMaltbie D. Babcock

Be strong!We are not here to play, to dream, to drift,We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.Shun not the struggle; face it. 'Tis God's gift.

Be strong!Say not the days are evil, - Who's to blame?

And fold not the hands and acquiesce, - O shame!

Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.Be strong!

It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,How hard the battle goes, the day, how long.Faint not, fight on! To-morrow comes the song.

I shall not live in vain

Emily Dickinson

I shall not live in vain:If I can ease one life the aching,Or cool one pain,Or help one fainting robinunto his nest again,I shall not live in vain.


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To be of useMarge Piercy

The people I love the bestjump into work head firstwithout dallying in the shallowsand swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.They seem to become natives of that element,the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to aheavy cart,who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,who strain in the mud and the muck to move thingsforward,

who do what has to be done again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvestand work in a row and pass the bags along,who are not parlor generals and field desertersbut move in a common rhythmwhen the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well donehas a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.Greek amphoras for wine or oil,Hope vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.The pitcher cries for water to carryand a person for work that is real.


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IfRudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about youmen are losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

but make allowances for their doubting, too.If you can wait but not be tired of waiting,

or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise,

If you can dream but not make dreams your master,if you can think and not make thoughts your aim,If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

and treat those two imposters just the same,If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

and stoop and build them up with worn-out tools,

If you can make one heap of all your winningsand risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,And lose and start again at your beginnings

and never breathe a word about your loss,If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

to serve your turn long after they are gone,And to hold on when there is nothing in you

but the will that says to them "hold on,"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,or walk with kings nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

if all men count with you but none too much,If you can fill the unforgiving minute

with 60 seconds worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

and which is more, you'll be a man, my son.


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Those Winter SundaysRobert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up earlyand put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,fearing the chronic angers of that house,

speaking indifferently to him,who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I knowof love's austere and lonely offices?

SabbathsWendell Berry

Whatever is foreseen in joyMust be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the darkBy our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for thatThe hand must ache, the face must sweat.And yet no leaf or grain is filledBy work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,Great work is done while were asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath moodRests on our day, and finds it good.


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Chapter Five: Rest

Genesis 2: Thus the heavens and the earth were

finished, and all their multitude. 2And on the seventhday God finished the work that he had done, and herested on the seventh day from all the work that hehad done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day andhallowed it, because on it God rested from all the

work that he had done in creation.

Morning PersonVassar Miller

God, best at making in the morning, tossedstars and planets, singing and dancing, rolledSaturns rings spinning and humming, twirled theearth

so hard it coughed and spat the moon up, brilliantbubble floating around it for good, stretched holyhands till birds in nervous sparks flew forth fromthem and beasts lizards, big and little, apes,lions, elephants, dogs and cats cavorting,tumbling over themselves, dizzy with joy whenGod made us in the morning too, both manand woman, leaving Adam no time for

sleep so nimbly was Eve bouncing out ofhis side till as night came everything andeverybody, growing tired, declined, satdown in one soft descended Hallelujah.


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Let Evening ComeJane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoonshine through chinks in the barn, movingup the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafingas a woman takes up her needlesand her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandonedin long grass. Let the stars appearand the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.Let the wind die down. Let the shedgo black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoopin the oats, to air in the lunglet evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come.


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Chapter Six: Responsibility

Genesis 1: 28 God blessed them, and God said tothem, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth andsubdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the seaand over the birds of the air and over every livingthing that moves upon the earth. 29 God said, See, Ihave given you every plant yielding seed that is uponthe face of all the earth, and every tree with seed inits fruit; you shall have them for food. 30And to every

beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and toeverything that creeps on the earth, everything thathas the breath of life, I have given every green plantfor food. And it was so.

Genesis 2: 18 Then the LORDGod said, It isnotgood that the man should be alone; I will make him a

helper as his partner. 19 So out of the ground theLORDGod formed every animal of the field and every

bird of the air, and brought them to the man to seewhat he would call them; and whatever the mancalled every living creature, that was its name.


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Traveling Through The DarkWilliam Stafford

Traveling through the dark I found a deerdead on the edge of the Wilson River road.It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:that road is narrow; to swerve might make moredead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the carand stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;

she had stiffened already, almost cold.I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,alive, still, never to be born.Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;under the hood purred the steady engine.I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,then pushed her over the edge into the river.


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Chapter Seven: Relationship

Genesis 2: 18 Then the LORDGod said, It is not

good that the man should be alone; I will make him ahelper as his partner. 19 So out of the ground theLORDGod formed every animal of the field and every

bird of the air, and brought them to the man to seewhat he would call them; and whatever the mancalled every living creature, that was its name. 20 Theman gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of theair, and to every animal of the field; but for the man

there was not found a helper as his partner. 21 So theLORDGod caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man,and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closedup its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the LORDGod had taken from the man he made into a womanand brought her to the man.

Never Again Would Bird's Song Be The SameRobert Frost

He would declare and could himself believeThat the birds there in all the garden roundFrom having heard the daylong voice of EveHad added to their own an oversound,Her tone of meaning but without the words.

Admittedly an eloquence so softCould only have had an influence on birds

When call or laughter carried it aloft.Be that as may be, she was in their song.Moreover her voice upon their voices crossedHad now persisted in the woods so longThat probably it never would be lost.Never again would birds' song be the same.

And to do that to birds was why she came.


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Those Who LoveSara Teasdale

Those who love the most,Do not talk of their love,Francesca, Guinevere,Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,In the fragrant gardens of heaven

Are silent, or speak if at allOf fragile inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to knowWho loved one man from her youth,Against the strength of the fatesFighting in somber prideNever spoke of this thing,But hearing his name by chance,

A light would pass over her face.

He Wishes For The Clothes of HeavenW.B. Yeats

Had I the heavens embroidered clothsEnwrought with golden and silver lightThe blue and the dimand the dark clothsof night and light and the half light

I would spread the cloths under your feetBut I, being poor, have only my dreamsI have spread my dreamsunder your feetTread softly because you treadon my dreams


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The Imperfect ParadiseLinda Pastan

If God had stopped work after the fifth dayWith Eden full of vegetables and fruits,If oak and lilac held exclusive swayOver a kingdom made of stems and roots,If landscape were the genius of creation

And neither man nor serpent played a roleAnd God must look to wind for lamentationAnd not to picture postcards of the soul,

Would he have rested on his bank of cloudWith nothing in the universe to lose,Or would he hunger for a human crowd?

Which would a wise and just creator choose:The green hosannas of a budding leafOr the strict contract between love and grief?


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ReluctanceRobert Frost

Out through the fields and the woodsAnd over the walls I have wended;I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by oneAnd let them go scraping and creepingOut over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;The last lone aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,But the feet question "Whither?"Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treasonTo go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?


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Chapter Eight: Authority

Genesis 3: Now the serpent was more crafty than

any other wild animal that the LORDGod had made.He said to the woman, Did God say, You shall noteat from any tree in the garden?

EdLouis Simpson

Ed was in love with a cocktail waitress,

but Eds family, and his friends,didnt approve. So he broke it off.

He married a respectable womanwho played the piano. She played well enoughto have been a professional

Eds wife left him

Years later, at a family gatheringEd got drunk and made a fool of himself.

He said, I should have married Doreen.Well, they said, why didnt you?


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The Star in the HillsWilliam Stafford

A star hit in the hills behind our houseup where the grass turns brown touching the sky.

Meteors have hit the world before, but this was near,and since TV; few saw, but many felt the shock.The state of California owns that land(and out from shore three miles), and any stars thatcome will be roped off and viewed on week days 8 to

5.

A guard who took the oath of loyalty and denied anypolice record told me this:If you dont have a police record yet

you could take the oath and get a jobif California should be hit by another star.

Id promiseto be loyal to Californiaand to guard any stars that hit it, I said,or any place three miles out from shore,unless the star was bigger than the state in which case Id be loyal to it.

But he said no exceptions were allowed,and he leaned against the state-owned meteor

so calm and puffed a cork tip cigarettethat I looked down and traced with my foot in thedustand thought again and said, OK any star.


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Chapter Nine: Regret

Scriptural image: Genesis 3: 6 So when the

woman saw that the tree was good for food, and thatit was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to

be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit andate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was

with her, and he ate.

The Road Not TakenRobert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.


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The DebtPaul Lawrence Dunbar

This is the price I pay Just for one riotous day Years of regret and of grief,And sorrow without relief.Suffer it I will, my friend,Suffer it until the end,Until the grave shall give relief.Small was the thing I bought,

Small was the thing at best,Small was the debt, I thought,But, O God! the interest.


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The PortraitStanley Kunitz

My mother never forgave my fatherfor killing himself,especially at such an awkward timeand in a public park,that spring

when I was waiting to be born.She locked his namein her deepest cabinet

and would not let him out,though I could hear him thumping.When I came down from the atticwith the pastel portrait in my handof a long-lipped stranger

with a brave moustacheand deep brown level eyes,she ripped it into shreds

without a single wordand slapped me hard.In my sixty-fourth yearI can feel my cheekstill burning.


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Psalm 51

1 Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,and my sin is ever before me.

4Against you, you alone, have I sinned,and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentenceand blameless when you pass judgment.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,and put a new and right spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me away from your presence,and do not take your holy spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,and sustain in me a willing spirit.


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The Village BurglarAnonymous

Under a spreading gooseberry bushThe village burglar lies;The burglar is a hairy man

With whiskers round his eyes.

He goes to church on Sundays;To hear the Parson shout;He puts a penny in the plate

And takes a shilling out

Not Waving But DrowningStevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:I was much further out than you thoughtAnd not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larkingAnd now he's deadIt must have been too cold for him his heart gave

way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always(Still the dead one lay moaning)I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.


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Minstrel ManLangston Hughes

Because my mouthIs wide with laughter

And my throatIs deep with song,

You do not thinkI suffer afterI have held my painSo long?

Because my mouthIs wide with laughter,

You do not hearMy inner cry?Because my feet

Are gay with dancingYou do not knowI die?

LiarsLangston Hughes

It is we who are liars:The Pretenders-to-be who are not

And the Pretenders-not-to-be who are.

It is we who use wordsAs screens for thoughtsAnd weave dark garmentsTo cover the naked bodyOf the too white Truth.It is we with the civilized souls

Who are liars.


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New YorkersEdward Field

Everywhere else in the country, if someone asks,

How are you? you are required to answer,like a phrase book, Fine, and you?

Only in New York can you say, Not so good, or evenRotten, and launch into your miseries and symptoms,then yawn and look bored when they interruptto go into endless detail about their own.

Nodding mechanically, you look at your watch.Look, angel, I've got to run, I'm late for my...uh...uh....analyst. But let's definitelyget together soon.

In just as sincere a voice as yours,they come back with, Definitely!and both of you know what that means,Never.

RevelationRobert Frost

We make ourselves a place apartBehind light words that tease and flout,

But oh, the agitated heartTill someone find us really out.

'Tis pity if the case require

(Or so we say) that in the endWe speak the literal to inspire

The understanding of a friend.But so with all, from babes that playAt hide-and-seek to God afar,So all who hide too well awayMust speak and tell us where they are.


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Chapter Eleven: Mortal

Genesis 3: 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat

bread until you return to the ground, for out of it youwere taken; you are dust, and to dust you shallreturn.

Common DustGeorgia Douglas Johnson

And who shall separate the dustWhat later we shall be:Whose keen discerning eye will scanAnd solve the mystery?

The high, the low, the rich, the poor,The black, the white, the red,

And all the chromatic between,

Of whom shall it be said:

Here lies the dust of Africa;Here are the sons of Rome;Here lies the one unlabled,The world at large his home!

Can one then separate the dust?

Will mankind lie apart,When life has settled back againThe same as from the start?


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Is my team plowingA. E. Housman

Is my team plowing,That I was used to drive

And hear the harness jingleWhen I was man alive?

Aye, the horses trample,The harness jingles now;

No change though you lieunder

The land you used toplow.

Is football playingAlong the river shore,

With lads to chase theleather,

Now I stand up no more?

Aye, the ball is flying,The lads play heart and

soul;The goal stands up, thekeeper

Stands up to keep thegoal.

Is my girl happy,That I thought hard to

leaveAnd has she tired ofweeping

As she lies down at eve?

Aye, she lies down lightly,

She lies not down to weep:Your girl is well contented.

Be still, my lad, and sleep.

Is my friend hearty,Now I am thin and pine;

And has he found to sleep inA better bed than mine?

Yes, lad, I lie easy,I lie as lads would choose;

I cheer a dead manssweetheart,

Never ask me whose.


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OtherwiseJane Kenyon

I got out of bedon two strong legs.It might have beenotherwise. I atecereal, sweetmilk, ripe, flawlesspeach. It mighthave been otherwise.

I took the dog uphillto the birch wood.All morning I didthe work I love.

At noon I lay downwith my mate. It mighthave been otherwise.

We ate dinner togetherat a table with silvercandlesticks. It mighthave been otherwise.I slept in a bedin a room with paintingson the walls, andplanned another day

just like this day.But one day, I know,it will be otherwise.


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after minor surgeryLinda Pastan

this is the dress rehearsalwhen the body like a constant loverflirts for the first time with faithlessness

when the body like a passenger on a long journeyhears the conductor call outthe name of the first stop

when the body in all its fear and cunningmakes promises to meit knowsit cannot keep

Death of an Old SeamanLangston Hughes

We buried him high on a windy hill,But his soul went out to sea.I know, for I heard, when all was still,His sea-soul say to me:

Put no tombstone at my head,For here Id o not make my bed.Strew no flowers on my grave,Ive gone back to the wind and wave.Do not, do not weep for me,For I am happy with my sea.


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One ArtElizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:places, and names, and where it was you meantto travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, ornext-to-last, of three loved houses went.The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gestureI love) I shan't have lied. It's evidentthe art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


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ShirtCarl Sandburg

I REMEMBER once I ran after you and tagged theflutteringshirt of you in the wind.

Once many days ago I drank a glassful of somethingand

the picture of you shivered and slid on top of thestuff.

And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the

singing voice of a careless humming woman.One night when I sat with chums telling stories at abonfire flickering red embers, in a language its

owntalking to a spread of white stars:

It was you that slunk laughingin the clumsy staggering shadows.

Broken answers of remembrance let me know you

arealive with a peering phantom face behind adoorway

somewhere in the city's push and furyOr under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence

under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to runaway again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you.

PoemWendell Berry

Willing to dieyou give upyour will, keep stilluntil, moved

by what movesall else, you move.


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ConfessionCharles Bukowski

waiting for deathlike a catthat will jump on the

bed

I am so very sorry formy wife

she will see thisstiff

whitebodyshake it once, thenmaybeagain

"Hank!"

Hank won'tanswer.

it's not my death that

worries me, it's my wifeleft with thispile ofnothing.

I want tolet her knowthough

that all the nightssleepingbeside her

even the uselessarguments

were thingsever splendid

and the hardwordsI ever feared tosaycan now besaid:

I loveyou.


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When Death Comes Mary Oliver

When death comeslike the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from hispurse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;when death comeslike the measles-pox;

when death comeslike an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everythingas a brotherhood and a sisterhood,and I look upon time as no more than an idea,and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as commonas a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouthtending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and somethingprecious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my lifeI was a bride married to amazement.I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonderif I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.


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Chapter Twelve: Journey

Genesis 3: 23 the LORDGod sent him forth from thegarden of Eden

God speaks to each of usRainer Maria Rilke(Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,Then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,Go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like a flameAnd make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.Just keep going. No feeling is final.Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.


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ReadingMoby-Dickat 30,000 FeetTony Hoagland

At this height, Kansasis just a concept,a checkerboard design of wheat and corn

no larger than the foldout sectionof my neighbor's travel magazine.

At this stage of the journey

I would estimate the distance

between myself and my own feelingsis roughly the same as the mileage

from Seattle to New York,so I can lean back into the upholstered interval

between Muzak and lunch,

a little bored, a little old and strange.

I remember, as a dreamybackyard kind of kid,

tilting up my head to watchthose planes engrave the skyin lines so steady and so straight

they implied the enormous concentrationof good men,

but now my eyes flicker

from the in-flight movieto the stewardess's pantyline,then back into my book,
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=113http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=113


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where men throw harpoons at somethingmuch bigger and probably

better than themselves,

wanting to kill it,wanting to see great clouds of blood eruptto prove that they exist.

Imagine being born and growing up,rushing through the world for sixty yearsat unimaginable speeds.

Imagine a century like a room so large,a corridor so long

you could travel for a lifetime

and never find the door,until you had forgottenthat such a thing as doors exist.

Better to be on board thePequod,with a mad one-legged captainliving for revenge.

Better to feel the salt windspitting in your face,to hold your sharpened weapon high,

to see the glistenof the beast beneath the waves.

What a relief it would be

to hear someone in the crewcry out like a gull,Oh Captain, Captain!Where are we going now?


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The Day Millicent Found the WorldWilliam Stafford

Every morning Millicent ventured fartherinto the woods. At first she stayednear light, the edge where bushes grew, whereher way back appeared in glimpses amongdark trunks behind her. Then by farther pathsor openings where giant pines had fallenshe explored ever deeper intothe interior, till one day she stood under a great

dome among columns, the heart of the forest, andknew:Lost. She had achieved a mysterious world

where any direction would yield only surprise

The Way It Is

William Stafford

Theres a thread you follow. It goes amongthings that change. But it doesnt change.People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you cant get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurtor die; and you suffer and get old.Nothing you do can stop times unfolding.

You dont ever let go of the thread.


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Your WorldGeorgia Douglas Johnson

Your world is as big as you make it

I know, for I used to abidein the narrowest nest in a corner,my wings pressing close to my side.

But I sighted the distant horizonwhere the skyline encircles the seaand I throbbed with a burning desireto travel this immensity.

I battered the cordons around meand cradled my wings on the breezethen soared to the uttermost reaches

with rapture, with power, with ease.

Zen and the Art of Peanut ButterW.G. McDonald

First, seek the most direct pathleading to the pantry.Focus on the jar itself.Reveal the contents

with a reverse spiral motion.Delicately insert the knife.Delicately withdraw the knife.

As if applying salve

to the infinite being himself,spread the contentson the leavened slice.

Attentively lick the remainderfrom the blade,and throw the sandwich away.


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SearchLangston Hughes

All life is but the climbing of a hill

To seek the sun that ranges far beyondConfused with stars and lesser lights anon,

And planets where the darkness reigneth still.

All life is but the seeking for that sunThat never lets one living atom die That flames beyond the circles of the eye

Where Never and Forever are as one.

And seeking always through this human spanThat spreads its drift of years beneath the skyConfused with living, goeth simple manUnknowing and unknown into the Why The Why that flings itself beyond the Sun

And back in space to where Time was begun.

Our journey had advanced

Emily Dickinson

Our journey had advanced.Our feet were almost comeTo that odd fork in Beings roadEternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe.Our feet reluctant led.

Before were cities, but betweenThe forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope,Behind, a sealed route,Eternitys white flag before,

And God at every gate.


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Chapter Thirteen: Parenting

Genesis 4: Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she

conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have produced aman with the help of the LORD. 2 Next she bore his

brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, andCain a tiller of the ground.

The Summer-Camp BusPulls Away from the Curb Sharon Olds

Whatever he needs, he has or doesnthave by now.

Whatever the world is going to do to himit has started to do. With a pencil and twoHardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich andgrapes he is on his way, there is nothingmore we can do for him. Whatever isstored in his heart, he can use, now.

Whatever he has laid up in his mindhe can call on. What he does not havehe can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as onefolds a flag at the end of a ceremony,onto itself, and onto itself, untilonly a heavy wedge remains.

Whatever his exuberant soulcan do for him, it is doing right now.

Whatever his arrogance can doit is doing to him. Everythingthats been done to him, he will now do.Everything thats been placed in him

will come out, now, the contents of a trunkunpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpinelight.


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A StoryLi-Young Lee

Sad is the man who is asked for a storyand can't come up with one.His five-year-old son waits in his lap.Not the same story, Baba. A new one.The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.In a room full of books in a worldof stories, he can recallnot one, and soon, he thinks, the boy

will give up on his father.Already the man lives far ahead, he seesthe day this boy will go. Don't go!Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!

You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.Let me tell it!But the boy is packing his shirts,he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,

the man screams, that I sit mute before you?Am I a god that I should never disappoint?But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?It is an emotional rather than logical equation,an earthly rather than heavenly one,

which posits that a boy's supplicationsand a father's love add up to silence.


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Boy at the WindowRichard Wilbur

Seeing the snowman standing all aloneIn dusk and cold is more than he can bear.The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare

A night of gnashings and enormous moan.His tearful sight can hardly reach to whereThe pale-faced figure with bitumen eyesReturns him such a god-forsaken stare

As outcast Adam gave to Paradise.

The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,Having no wish to go inside and die.Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.Though frozen water is his element,He melts enough to drop from one soft eye

A trickle of the purest rain, a tearFor the child at the bright pane surrounded by

Such warmth, such light, such love, and so muchfear.


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At The Smithville Methodist ChurchStephen Dunn

It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,but when she came homewith the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what artwas up, what ancient craft.

She liked her little friends. She liked the songsthey sang when they weren'ttwisting and folding paper into dolls.

What could be so bad?

Jesus had been a good man, and putting faithin good men was what

we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,that other sadness.

OK, we said, One week. But when she came home

singing "Jesus loves me,the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.Could we say Jesus

doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bibleis a great book certain people useto make you feel bad? We sent her back

without a word.

It had been so long since we believed, so longsince we needed Jesusas our nemesis and friend, that we thought he wassufficiently dead,


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that our children would think of him like Lincolnor Thomas Jefferson.Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief

to a child,

only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a storynearly as good.On parents' night there were the Arts & Craftsall spread out

like appetizers. Then we took our seats

in the churchand the children sang a song about the Ark,and Hallelujah

and one in which they had to jump up and downfor Jesus.I can't remember ever feeling so uncertainabout what's comic, what's serious.

Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.You can't say to your child"Evolution loves you." The story stinksof extinction and nothing

exciting happens for centuries. I didn't havea wonderful story for my child

and she was beaming. All the way home in the carshe sang the songs,

occasionally standing up for Jesus.There was nothing to do

but drive, ride it out, sing alongin silence.


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Wrist-wrestling fatherOrval Lund

for my father

On the maple wood we placed our elbowsand gripped hands, the object to bendthe other's arm to the kitchen table.

We flexed our arms and waited for the sign.I once shot a wild goose.I once stood not twenty feet from a buck deerunnoticed.

I've seen a woods full of pink lady slippers.I once caught a 19-inch trout on a tiny fly.I've seen the Pacific, I've seen the Atlantic,I've watched whales in each.I once heard Lenny Bruce tell jokes.I've seen Sandy Koufax pitch a baseball.I've heard Paul Desmond play the saxophone.I've been to London to see the Queen.

I've had dinner with a Nobel Prize poet.I wrote a poem once with every word but one justright.I've fathered two fine sonsand loved the same woman for twenty-five years.But I've never been more amazedthan when I snapped my father's arm down to thetable.


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First LessonPhillip Booth

Lie back, daughter, let your headbe tipped back in the cup of my hand.Gently, and I will hold you. Spread

your arms wide, lie out on the stream,and look up, laugh at the gulls. A dead-mans-float is face down. You will diveand swim soon enough where this tidewaterebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe

me, when you tire on the long thrashto the island, lie up, and survive.As you float now, where I held youand let go, remember when fearcramps your heart what I told you:lie gently and wide to the light-yearstars, lie back and the sea will hold you.


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A Poem for EmilyMiller Williams

Small fact and fingers and farthest one from me,a hands width and two generations away,in this still present I am fifty-three.

You are not yet a full day.

When I am sixty-three, when you are ten,and you are neither closer nor as far,

your arms will fill with what you know by then,the arithmetic and love we do and are.

When I by blood and luck am eighty-sixand you are someplace else and thirty-three

believing in sex and God and politicswith children who look not at all like me,

sometime I know you will have read them thisso they will know I love them and say so

and love their mother. Child, whatever isis always or never was. Long ago

a day I watched awhile beside your bed,I wrote this down, a thing that might be keptawhile, to tell you what I would have said

when you were who knows what and I was deadwhich is I stood and loved you while you slept.


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Chapter Fourteen: Absence

Genesis 4: 8 Cain said to his brother Abel, Let us go

out to the field. And when they were in the field,Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.

Psalm 10 1Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

Apparently with no surpriseEmily Dickinson

Apparently with no surpriseTo any happy flower,The frost beheads at its playIn accidental power.

The blond assassin passes on,The sun proceeds unmovedTo measure off another dayFor an approving God.

The Sandy HoleJane Kenyon

The infants coffin no bigger than a flightbagThe young father steps backward from the sandy hole,eyes wide and dry, his hand over his mouth.No one dares to come near him, even to touch his sleeve.


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Ballad of Birmingham (On the bombing of a church inBirmingham, Alabama, 1963) Dudley Randall

"Mother dear, may I go downtown

Instead of out to play,And march the streets of BirminghamIn a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go,For the dogs are fierce and wild,And clubs and hoses, guns and jailsAren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone.Other children will go with me,And march the streets of BirminghamTo make our country free."

"No, baby, no, you may not go,For I fear those guns will fire.But you may go to church insteadAnd sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,And bathed rose petal sweet,And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her childWas in the sacred place,But that smile was the last smileTo come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,Her eyes grew wet and wild.She raced through the streets of BirminghamCalling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,Then lifted out a shoe."O, here's the shoe my baby wore,But, baby, where are you?"


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PsalmReed Whittemore

The Lord feeds some of His prisoners better than others.It could be said of Him that He is not a just god but anindifferent god.That He is not to be trusted to reward the righteous

and punish the unscrupulous.That He maketh the poor poorer but is otherwiseundependable.

It could be said of Him that it is His school for the germanethat produced

the Congressional Record.That it is His vision of justice that gave us cost accounting.

It could be said of Him that though we walk with Him allthe days of our lives we will never fathom Him

Because He is empty.

These are the dark images of our LordThat make it seem needful for us to pray not unto HimBut ourselves.But when we do that we find that indeed we are truly lostAnd we rush back into the safer fold, impressed by His carefor us.


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ConfluentsChristina Rossetti

As rivers seek the sea,

Much more deep than they,So my soul seeks theeFar away:

As running rivers moanOn their course aloneSo I moanLeft alone.

As the delicate roseTo the suns sweet strengthDoth herself unclose,Breadth and length:

So spreads my heart to theeUnveiled utterly,I to theeUtterly.

As morning dew exhalesSunwards pure and free,

So my spirit failsAfter thee:

As dew leaves not a traceOn the green earths face;I, no traceOn thy face.

Its goal the river knows,Dewdrops find a way,

Sunlight cheers the roseIn her day:

Shall I, lone sorrow past,Find thee at the last?Sorrow past,Thee at last?


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Chapter Fifteen : Presence

Genesis 3: 21And the LORDGod made garments of

skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.

Genesis 4: 13 Cain said to the LORD, Mypunishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Today youhave driven me away from the soil, and I shall behidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a

wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets memay kill me. 15 Then the LORDsaid to him, Not so!

Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfoldvengeance. And the LORDput a mark on Cain

Easter MorningWilliam Stafford

Maybe someone comes to the door and saysRepent and you say, Come on in and its

Jesus. Thats when all you ever did, or said,or even thought, suddenly wakes up again andsings out, Im still here, and you know its true.

You just shiver alive and are left standingThere suddenly brought to account: saved.

Except, maybe that someone says, Ive got a dealfor you. And you listen, because thats how

youre trained- they told you, Always hear both sides.So then the slick voice can sell you anything, evenHell, which is what you are getting by listening.

Well, what should you do? Id say always go tothe door, yes, but keep the screen locked. Then,

while you hold the Bible in one hand, lean forwardand say carefully, Jesus?Psalm 121Michael Wigglesworth


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I to the hills lift up mine eyes,from whence shall come mine aid.

Mine help doth from Jehovah come,

which heaven and earth hath made.

He will not let thy foot be moved,nor slumber; that thee keeps.

Lo he that keepth Israel,he slumbreth not, nor sleeps.

The Lord thy keeper is, the Lord

on thy right hand the shade.The sun by day, nor moon by night,shall thee by stroke invade.

The Lord will keep thee from all ill:thy soul he keeps alway,

Thy going out, and thy incomethe Lord keeps now and aye.

A Great PilgrimageKabir

I felt in need of a great pilgrimageso I sat still for three

days

and God cameto me.

Fishing in the Keep of Silence

Linda Gregg


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There is a hush now while the hills rise upand God is going to sleep. He trusts the shipof Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully

as he lies dreaming in the lap of the world.He knows the owls will guard the sweetness of thesoul in their massive keep of silence,looking out with eyes open or closed overthe length of Tomales Bay that the heronsconform to, whitely broad in flight, whiteand slim in standing. God, who thinks aboutpoetry all the time, breathes happily as He

repeats to Himself: there are fish in the net,lots of fish this time in the net of the heart.


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Psalm 23from The Bay Psalm Book

The Lord to me a shepherd is,Want therefore I shall not,He in the folds of tender grass

Doth make me down to lieTo waters calm he gently leads

Restore my soul doth heHe doth in paths of righteousness

For his names sake lead me.

Yea though in valley of deaths shadeI walk none ill Ill fear,Because thou art with me, thy rod,

and staff my comfort are.For me a table thou hast spread

In presence of my foes;Thou dost annoint my head with oil

My cup it over-flows.

Goodness and mercy surely shallAll my days follow me;And in the Lords house I shall dwell

So long as days shall be.


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PaxD.H. Lawrence

All that matters is to be at one with the living Godto be a creature in the house of the God of Life.

Like a cat asleep on a chairat peace, in peaceand at one with the master of the house, with themistress,at home, at home in the house of the living,

sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.

Sleeping on the hearth of the living worldyawning at home before the fire of lifefeeling the presence of the living Godlike a great reassurancea deep calm in the hearta presence

as of the master sitting at the boardin his own and greater being,in the house of life.


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Psalm 139

The Inescapable God

To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.2You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from far away.3You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways.4 Even before a word is on my tongue,

O LORD, you know it completely.5

You hem me in, behind and before,and lay your hand upon me.6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is so high that I cannot attain it.

7Where can I go from your spirit?Or where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.9 If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,10 even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast.11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light around me become night,12 even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,for darkness is as light to you.


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13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;you knit me together in my mothers womb.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully

made.Wonderful are your works;that I know very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.16Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

all the days that were formed for me,when none of them as yet existed.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;test me and know my thoughts.

24 See if there is any wicked way in me,and lead me in the way everlasting.

In the beginning were the words

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