The Last Rainbow — An Apocalyptic
February 22, 2010
NOTE: It’s Lent, people; it’s supposed to be depressing.
No one remembers
When the last rainbow appeared.
Was it after that last oil spill?
The one that finally did the ocean in?
Was it after the last mountain was leveled?
Or when the last hill was slit open?
When the last of the mineral wealth was stolen?
Was it after the last forest was paved over?
After the last marsh was converted to overflow parking?
Or was it just before that delicate, unknown moment
When the scales were tipped ever so slightly,
And the air became so pregnant with poison
That that very last persistent little bird
Could not lift her petrol-slick wings in flight?
When did we break that age-old treaty
Between God and all humankind–
When God promised not to destroy the earth?
When did we take it upon ourselves
To do that which God would not do?
The last rainbow happened decades ago.
“Advent Calendar”
December 5, 2009
He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
- Rowan Williams
*picture – Tom Graves*
Dia De Los Muertos
October 31, 2009
Dia de los Muertos,
Scholars say, pre-dates Christianity;
Joyous caladeras dancing in the streets,
Cemeteries decorated in marigolds.
All scholars have are books.
[2]
Make no mistake.
It was a shrewd imperial power play
That aligned All Saint’s Day
To so many pagan holidays.
[3]
Atheists are fond of imagining
The Resurrection to be a zombie infestation;
A classic Halloween costume,
A tired B-movie,
Superimposed on ancient belief.
[4]
We all are searching for a way
To deal with mortality.
Blessed be that holy trinity
Physics, Chemistry, and Biology
Save us now, and in the hour of our death.
[5]
A Mexican saying goes:
“In a hundred years we will all be skeletons.
In a thousand years we will still be skeletons.”
How can a scientist be so sure?
But, I do believe in a thousand years
Of dancing in the streets.
[6]
We are still searching for a way
To face the hour of our death.
I’ll settle on the Resurrection (and candy skulls)
Over Holy Father Science any day.
[7]
Make no mistake.
God loves the old switcher-roo.
Now is when Zombies stalk the earth;
But when graves break open,
When justice and peace roll down,
When the Great Contradiction
Overcomes the logic of death,
That will be a day for the living.
Wendell Berry’s Latest Poem
October 11, 2009
I just noticed this poem, published at the end of last month by the New Yorker. Wendell Berry is not only a poet, novelist, and essayist, but also (and he would probably say foremostly) a farmer. He has a way with words and with soil, and that’s rare. Anyway, check out his new poem: A Speech to the Garden Club of America, my favorite part of which I quote below.
The garden lives by the immortal Wheel
That turns in place, year after year, to heal
It whole. Unlike our economic pyre
That draws from ancient rock a fossil fire,
An anti-life of radiance and fume
That burns as power and remains as doom,
The garden delves no deeper than its roots
And lifts no higher than its leaves and fruits.
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
