Four Part Harmony - a poem

I wrote the first draft of this poem in March of 2019, and for the last 6 Marches (and only in March, oddly) I have fiddled with it. Today, I think I might have finished it. It is not perfect, it's not even very good, but I've been convicted lately that writing is meant to be read. Maybe not by you, but in handing it to you or to “Readers” - whoever that might be - I can finally step back and read it myself for what it is rather than what I meant. Does that make sense? On my last read-through, after fiddling and cutting and adding and changing, I found that at the end, I was moved. Not because I wrote it, but because it was saying something to me, something that I hadn’t put in its mouth. It's because of that that I feel like I can hand it off to Others. It has it’s form and a voice of its own. Whether it is worth either of those things, whether they're any good, remains to be seen.

It's a meditation on Creation and redemption, and it’s long, so if that bothers you, stop here. It's free verse, so if that annoys you, stop here. It's Christian, so if that annoys you stop here. And it's not very good. If that would bother you, definitely stop here. I’m not a fan of poetasters myself, though I am president and founder of our local Poetaster Chapter.

If you decide to read anyway, don't say I didn't warn you. And if you make it to the end, may it be some kind of blessing to you.

I could go on to talk about how this is the most nervous I have ever been to post a thing, but I’ll spare you. Whatever you do, in word or deed or mediocre verse, do all to the glory of God. Hopefully, He’s pleased.

Four Part Harmony

Summer

We pitch our tents on Land the sea still gnaws,

Called out at the Beginning from the mouth of Chaos,

Spat out like the reluctant prophet.

It writhed as a burning beast, liquid rock

Until it met the cold of air and water brooding over,

and hissed and hushed and hardened its shell.

We stand on the now still and silent soil;

We furrow the once feral fire

And live on its nourishment as babes on the breast,

And like babes, we live unaware,

Not thinking of the continuously bubbling rock beneath our feet.

Above us,

All over and around the turning earth, a watery sky stretches skin-tight.

We sojourn within a sphere of vapor;

We wander beside the monstrous sea, beneath billowing clouds constantly

Shifting, tumbling, rolling, roiling; arial architectures,

Cityscapes of droplets hanging heavy in midair,

Suspended and held high above our little heads - how?

Who holds them?

There are mysteries so common they are unseen;

Order and faithfulness, steady revolution,

Heat and cold, planting and harvests and the rush of growth between,

Hunger that sharpens, waiting that whets,

Fullness that lulls and finally contents;

The annual pageantry of death, like a stone, rolled away;

And life - quiet, strong, relentless life - rising again

From the ashes of a burnt-out year;

Resurrection so ordinary and expected that

We do not wonder to see it.

We do not wonder to see.

We do not wonder.

Autumn

The leaves flame and curl and fall.

Everything blazes and darkens

To the color of blood spilled and dried.

Oh, that I had ears to hear

The sound of the earth's cries;

Her wailing in waiting,

Her groaning and straining;

Soaked in death, stained by blood,

Caked in the ashes of Time;

Pulling at thorns, sharing our curse but in a different form.

We are waiting, together we wait, fellow-creatures and dependents;

With all creation we feel the ache, the longing

To be what we should have been,

And cannot be now

But will be Then.

We hope.

We hope against hope.

May it be so.

Amen.

Winter

Like Job, the earth sits in the ashes of the year,

in garments torn by the tempest of Time.

Dark trees stand stark, bushes bare,

Thin light from the distant, untouchable sun,

Like Job’s friends, gives only anguish and shadow.

The soil is stone-hard, unresponsive,

frozen in sleep - or is it death?

The earth waits and watches,

Wonders and hopes,

Wonders to hope.

Spring

Life heaves slowly up through the sleepy soil, and

The first notes are sung by the smallest singers;

The snowdrop and crocus,

The daffodil and dandelion, the bright unblinking ox-eye daisy -

Heraldic flowers on a green field wakening,

Small and eager,

Singing every moment with the universal resonance,

“Rise up, O sleepers! Rise up!”

Let me not be deaf to Winter's rough whisper,

"Redemption is not yours alone!"

The earth, though hard as stone, knows

Her King is coming, and even in her groaning, she grows

Young again. The loathly lady is fair again, dressed as a bride for her rescuing knight.

Briefly, the curse lifts and seeing, we remember

The promise, “I will come again.”

Hope heaves slowly through our sleepy souls.

O, that this hope of the King’s return to the yearning world

Would make my every movement, every moment,

A prayer of confession, a song of adoration, a cry of Joy, an anthem of Praise!

O, as small and loathly as I am,

Let me join the Chorus of Redemption and Resurrection;

Let me sing with all nature in manifold witness,

"Beauty for ashes!

Joy for mourning!

The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness!

That He might be glorified!”

Rise up, Brother Job! Your children – all your children – are waiting,

Tall and strong in the golden light of the Eternal Son,

To stand beside you and sing the Eternal Glory song!

Quick, Job, quick! It’s already begun!

Forsythia, in bud, waiting