Love, by CS Lewis

Love

Love's as warm as tears, 
          Love is tears: 
Pressure within the brain,
Tension at the throat,
Deluge, weeks of rain,
Haystacks afloat,
Featureless seas between 
Hedges, where once was green 

Love's as fierce as fire, 
         Love is fire: 
All sorts--Infernal heat 
Clinkered with greed and pride, 
Lyric desire, sharp-sweet, 
Laughing, even when denied, 
And that empyreal flame 
Whence all loves came. 

Love's as fresh as spring, 
          Love is spring: 
Bird-song in the air,
Cool smells in a wood,
Whispering "Dare! Dare!" 
To sap, to blood,
Telling "Ease, safety, rest,
Are good; not best." 

Love's as hard as nails, 
          Love is nails: 
Blunt, thick, hammered through 
The medial nerves of One 
Who, having made us, knew 
The thing He had done, 
Seeing (what all that is) 
Our cross, and His.

C.S. Lewis  

Gunboat on the Huangpu

There's a gunboat
    In the roads off the Bund,
Small and grey against
    The dingy yellow clay solution
Swirling down the Huangpu to the  
    East China Sea.
The Peterel's bridge is broken
    Red and orange flowers
Bloom amidships as she settles,
    British steel into Chinese mud
Stricken, sinking under the shells,
    Salvos out of the Rising Sun.

But her flag is not struck,
    And defiance barks and flashes 
Still from her turret most aft.
    Throwing flame, eating fire,
Her gun crew, bound by water and iron
    And will to feed their reeking tubes
Shells, powder, and pull
    Blind, into the morning light
Seeking sightless the mighty Izumo.

Evening of the Day that Will Live in Infamy
    A few are pulled from the silent wreck,
Badly burned, skin sloughing off in the hands
    Of rescuers, the men placed in beds in 
Shanghai General, under white linen temporarily
    While life expires and mad war begins its 
Years long reign.  

The soldiers of the Son of Amaterasu
    Come into the hospital, 
One of the, oh so few times,
    To salute and bow to the blackened faces and broken
Bodies of the several on the threshold of eternity
    As mortally wounded as the hulk off the docks.

All that is honored, where East meets West
    With fear and death, is perseverance.
Sticking to your guns,
    Enduring to the utter end of things.

The mountain roars, fire consumes all,
    The sword eats the stricken and the wielder.

Until the eagles come,
    And the White Rider on wings of silver,
With the secret name,
    We are The Resistance.

Sleeping in Sunlight

To sleep in sunlight
        Out of time with
The diurnal cycle speaks
         Of nights spent in cool
Dark splendor spangled with
         Stars and quiet conversation.

To sleep in sunlight
        Out of time with pursuit
Of increase, or chasing gain speaks
        Of unmeasured wealth,
The world, and all the time to
        Deal with the troubles of the day
Bright peace, and health of heart, mind
        And hand, and quiet breathing.

To sleep in sunlight
        Out of time in dreams speaks
Of worlds that were, and are to come
         Far shores, blue and sunlit waters
Clear depths, and sand.  Smooth skin,
         Strength regained, and you, smiling
Again.  Love gradual, and then all once.

A Lament on Summer

While the days were long
    And summer glowed and let us out
My love for you was bright
    And simple.  An eternity in sunlight
Dappled shade, warm breezes, water.
    It was not to end, as all lovers
Know, it was to be as eternal as God.
    As Heaven and Angels.

But woe to us, we live in time, and
    Are snatched away by shortness,
Distance, sickness, and all manner of distress.
    And so all I have are tears in a bottle
Somewhere in the hand of Love.
    Freckles; summer skin, long hair,
And cut-grass smell.  Deep pools, dark
    Depths in which you float, suspended.
And green avocados, whole brown bread,
    And after sunset over the Shenandoah,
Paper lanterns in the sky.

O Love, lose not, the moments of my grace
    When once I loved, was young,
And it was summer in my little world
    And all Your gifts spoke of forever.  

Listening to Garrison Keillor;

The Writer's Almanac
        For Friday
August 17th
        2012

And the heat of an August day
        Comes over
Dusty and dry around the edges
        Lush and green
In the middle of corn and beans
        Something of Minnesota
The Midwest, and Minneapolis
        In the familiar lilt
A way of life, and a world view
        And not just the voice
Of Ted Hughes, English poet
        Silent on the Perfect Light
Snuffed out when I was three
        Until the curtain was
Closing on his own.

Desolation inconsolable.
        Yes, Hughes, you are correct.
"The inmost spirit of poetry, in other words,
         is at bottom, in every recorded case,
the voice of pain — and the physical body,
         so to speak, of poetry,
is the treatment by which the poet tries
         to reconcile that pain with the world."

But only partially.  For some, few perhaps
         The few of a narrow way
The few required for the glory of the
         Once and Coming One
The joy is unquenchable in the driest
         Realm.  However great, however
Many the desolations. Consummation
         And consolation are heard,
Smelt.  Water illimitable onrushing
         Rain and brook and sea. 

But yes, all beauty is born, through pain. 

A Natural Salvation -

Naturally I want a natural

                Salvation.  Dark hair and eyes,

Boldness.  Firm curiosity and desire

                Willingness and the ready yes.

Working hands, observance, keenness

                Of insight and the wisdom

Of suffering in touch and word. 

Food prepared with the skill of

                Practiced love.  And the folding

Over of the buffalo robe, like the corner

                Of God’s garment over the

Naked, bloody child abandoned by the road.

                The covering of love, the

Nurture of consummation, the initiation

                Of conversation between friends

The verbal and physical intimacy of lovers. 

And so the sorrow of the night,

                The weeping of the weary soul

Are put away for joy.  New hope is born

                The hand becomes strong

The eyes brighten.  Rest is made sweet

                Food becomes savory,

And long, black curls are tossed, like the mane

                Of the mare, and the pride of her mate.

Arise, my love, let us walk in the dew of the mountain morning

                The fresh smell of the sage, the blue spruce,

The fir and the pine.  We will rest in the shade of

                The aspen, and love in the shadow of night

Even as we delight in the revelations of light,

                The curve of the thigh,

And the softness

                Of sighs. 

Betrayal, Of Christ

Betrayal, Of Christ

It was a difficult thing, and a considered decision, for Christ to announce, “I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me.”   We all know what that means, and we all know the condition of our own hearts – the secret resentments, the petty jealousies, the surge of anger or of fear.  And none of us wants to merit being fired, being excommunicated, being shunned.  So a vague announcement of termination, of being made redundant, of being disqualified, released, let go – this makes us a bit nuts and we begin to compare ourselves to our fellows, and measure ourselves, and try to determine with greater definition – where do I stand?  “Is it I, Lord?”  Why this stirring of the pot?  Why not let the betrayal unfold in due time without a word, without calling attention to it at the eleventh hour?  Why create angst, fear, or dread?  Why not whisper simply, just to Judas, into his dull ear, instead?  So what was the consideration, the strategy, the key part of the eternal plan – this announcement?  The revelation of hearts?  The exposure of weakness, fear, and doubts in the face of the discussion of the pecking order to come in the Kingdom of the Son?   Yes, likely, these – just so.  Betrayal takes many forms, varies in intensity and impact, but it all begins in the heart.  To check the outward is to attempt the damming of a torrent in Spring. 

How odd it is, that the turn of the tongue, tension on the vocal chord, expansion of the lung, gives honor or withholds it; displays the contents of the heart, even the depths of the soul.  My mastery of your accent, the idioms of your mother tongue, your way of expressing heart language; in the end, my submission to your birth household, demonstrates love in ways nothing else can.  God confused the languages at Babel to scatter men over the face of the earth, and quell the uprising of pride and its towering symbol.  And in so doing He created a path for men to demonstrate the opposite of the natural habit of pride of nation, language, upbringing, wealth and edifice.  When I submit myself to learn your soul tongue, I show love sourced in the Fountainhead.  I incarnate my alien self as one of the People.  And the Good News gains glory and power.  How indeed, shall they hear, without a preacher, and more than this, one who submits to babel, and releases hold of Latin, Greek or Arabic.  Receive Christ, repent, be baptized, O People. 

Mutual submission.  Humbling of the self outwardly and inwardly - by deeds and by attitude.  This creates beauty.  This is a form, always, of suffering - of dieing; dieing to self.  This also creates love, nutures it, gives it increase.  On this form of love you can build oneness of heart.  It creates productivity in work, intimacy in marriage, unity in the society of families, villages, cities and nations.  Mutual submission in lovers creates an intense bond; image of the Trinity, of Incarnation.  The summa of Mystery.