Tags
Earth Day, Gerald Manley Hopkins, inspiration, Nature, photography, poetry, Theodore Roethke, Thomas Merton
From “The Shape of Fire” by Theodore Roethke
To have the whole air!—
The light, the full sun
Coming down on the flowerheads,
The tendrils turning slowly,
A slow snail-lifting, liquescent;
To be by the rose
Rising slowly out of its bed,
Still as a child in its first loneliness;
To see cyclamen veins become clearer in early sunlight,
And mist lifting out of the brown cat-tails;
To stare into the after-light, the glitter left on the lake’s surface,
When the sun has fallen behind a wooded island;
To follow the drops sliding from a lifted oar,
Held up, while the rower breathes, and the small boat drifts quietly shoreward;
To know that light falls and fills, often without our knowing,
As an opaque vase fills to the brim from a quick pouring,
Fills and trembles at the edge yet does not flow over,
Still holding and feeding the stem of the contained flower.
Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
O Sweet Irrational Worship by Thomas Merton
Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.
By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,
Bird and wind.
My leaves sing.
I am earth, earth
All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.
A tall, spare pine
Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.
When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!
I am earth, earth
My heart’s love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.
I am earth, earth
Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.
Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.
I.V. Greco said:
These are wonderful poems to read this morning! It is a glorious spring day with blossoms on the trees and plenty of sunshine beaming down on everything.
deborahbrasket said:
I’m glad you enjoyed them. It’s been gorgeous here too.
Writing to Freedom said:
These are lovely photos and poems to celebrate Earth Day. I particularly like the Thomas Merton verse.
deborahbrasket said:
Thanks, Brad. That’s one of my favorites too.
Steve Schwartzman said:
The Hopkins and the Merton overtly offer, respectively, praise and worship. The Roethke, based on your “From ‘The Shape of Fire,'” is an excerpt; the part you quote remains more secular than the other two.
deborahbrasket said:
That’s true. It is a kind of worship to praise the world around you, to be a nature lover, whether you are a believer or not. I once read that the most sincere kind of prayer is a simple “thank you.”
cindy knoke said:
Lovely. Happy Earth Day! 🌎
deborahbrasket said:
You too, Cindy!
laura bruno lilly said:
Refreshing Earth Day Greetings…thank-you, Deborah.
deborahbrasket said:
You are so welcome. Laura. I went to your site the other day and saw that it was “under construction.” Something new coming our way soon?
laura bruno lilly said:
I wish! I’ve been swamped with getting the site updated, prepped for migration to another host, then fixing the mess that arrived at the new host! The ‘new’ will have to wait, but I hope to have it live – intact – soon! HA! Thanks for checking up from time to time, though.
deborahbrasket said:
Where is your site headed? I’ll look forward to seeing it up again.
laura bruno lilly said:
Well, it’s migrated, but not fully functional. Have had my **latest** tech request in the Jetpack Forum for a week at least. 😦
Here’s a link to my newest post that some ‘followers’ are getting delivered in the partial functioning of the site: https://laurabrunolilly.com/staging-sites-migration-and-the-sounds-of-silence/
You have a cameo appearance in it! HA!
camilla wells paynter said:
Lovely choices! Thank you! I’d completely forgotten about “Praise be to God for Dappled Things”! Love that!
Pingback: Staging Sites, Migration and The Sounds of Silence | Laura Bruno Lilly