“The Black Swan” by James Merrill

Black on flat water past jonquil lawns
Riding, the black swan draws
A private chaos warbling in its wake,
Assuming, like a fourth dimension, splendor
That calls the child with white ideas of swans
Nearer to that green lake
Where every paradox means wonder.

Although the black neck arches not unlike
A question mark on the lake,
The swan outlaws all easy questioning:
A thing in its self, equivocal, foreknown,
Like pain, or women singing as we wake;
And the swan song it sings
Is the huge silence of the swan.

Illusion: the black swan knows how to break
Through expectation, beak
Aimed now at its own breast, now at its image,
And move across our lives, if the lake is life,
And by the gentlest turning of its neck
Transform, in time, time’s damage;
To less than a black plume, time’s grief.

Enchanter: the black swan has learned to enter
Sorrow’s lost secret center
Where, like a May fete, separate tragedies
Are wound in ribbons round the pole to share
A hollowness, a marrow of pure winter
That does not change but is
Always brilliant ice and air.

Always the black swan moves on the lake. Always
The moment comes to gaze
As the tall emblem pivots and rides out
To the opposite side, always. The blond child on
The bank, hands full of difficult marvels, stays
Now in bliss, now in doubt.
His lips move: I love the black swan.

James Merrill
Collected Poems (1946/2001)

*I read this yesterday. I was sitting in a room made of stone, at Fernwood in California, when I discovered this poem in James Merrill’s Collected Poems, which happened to be on the table in front of me … There was a wide, shallow, blue basin upheld by the branches of a leafless tree, filled with combed sand and guarded by two meditating brass figurines (making a small zen garden), to my right.

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“The Place I Want to Get Back To” by Mary Oliver

The place I want to get back to
is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let’s see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can’t be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.

Mary Oliver
Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006)

*shared by Marj Mead, who works in the Wade Center near Wheaton College, with Linda Richardson, the deacon at Church of the Savior, who passed it on to me via Facebook … I read it after returning from Wright’s Lake in the Sierras–perfect.

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Goldfish

“Goldfish” by Jane Beal

(watercolor pen on patterned vellum)

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SUNFLOWER SONGS

Now available from Lulu Press:

Sunflower Songs

For Christ—

the light I follow across the sky

“For God is Light,
and there is no darkness in him.”

1 John 1:5b

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Job Answers God

Then Job replied to the Lord:

² “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
³ You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.

⁴ “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
⁵ My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
⁶ Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”

 Job 42:1-6

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God Speaks to Job Out of the Whirlwind

The Lord Answers Job

38 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words
without knowledge?

³ Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶ On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
⁷ when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
⁹ when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
¹⁰ and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,
¹¹ and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

¹² “Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
¹³ that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
¹⁴ It is changed like clay under the seal,
and its features stand out like a garment.
¹⁵ From the wicked their light is withheld,
and their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶ “Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
¹⁸ Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.

¹⁹ “Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
²⁰ that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
²¹ You know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!

²² “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
²³ which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
for the day of battle and war?
²⁴ What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

²⁵ “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain
and a way for the thunderbolt,
²⁶ to bring rain on a land where no man is,
on the desert in which there is no man,
²⁷ to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground sprout with grass?

²⁸ “Has the rain a father,
or who has begotten the drops of dew?
²⁹ From whose womb did the ice come forth,
and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?
³⁰ The waters become hard like stone,
and the face of the deep is frozen.

³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loose the cords of Orion?
³² Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,
or can you guide the Bear with its children?
³³ Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth?

³⁴ “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
that a flood of waters may cover you?
³⁵ Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go
and say to you, ‘Here we are’?
³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the inward parts
or given understanding to the mind?
³⁷ Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
³⁸ when the dust runs into a mass
and the clods stick fast together?

³⁹ “Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in their thicket?
⁴¹ Who provides for the raven its prey,
when its young ones cry to God for help,
and wander about for lack of food?

39 “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the does?
² Can you number the months that they fulfill,
and do you know the time when they give birth,
³ when they crouch, bring forth their offspring,
and are delivered of their young?
⁴ Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open;
they go out and do not return to them.

⁵ “Who has let the wild donkey go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,
⁶ to whom I have given the arid plain for his home
and the salt land for his dwelling place?
⁷ He scorns the tumult of the city;
he hears not the shouts of the driver.
⁸ He ranges the mountains as his pasture,
and he searches after every green thing.

⁹ “Is the wild ox willing to serve you?
Will he spend the night at your manger?
¹⁰ Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes,
or will he harrow the valleys after you?
¹¹ Will you depend on him because his strength is great,
and will you leave to him your labor?
¹² Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain
and gather it to your threshing floor?

¹³ “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly,
but are they the pinions and plumage of love?
¹⁴ For she leaves her eggs to the earth
and lets them be warmed on the ground,
¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them
and that the wild beast may trample them.
¹⁶ She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers;
though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear,
¹⁷ because God has made her forget wisdom
and given her no share in understanding.
¹⁸ When she rouses herself to flee,
she laughs at the horse and his rider.

¹⁹ “Do you give the horse his might?
Do you clothe his neck with a mane?
²⁰ Do you make him leap like the locust?
His majestic snorting is terrifying.
²¹ He paws in the valley and exults in his strength;
he goes out to meet the weapons.
²² He laughs at fear and is not dismayed;
he does not turn back from the sword.
²³ Upon him rattle the quiver,
the flashing spear, and the javelin.
²⁴ With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground;
he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
²⁵ When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’
He smells the battle from afar,
the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

²⁶ “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars
and spreads his wings toward the south?
²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up
and makes his nest on high?
²⁸ On the rock he dwells and makes his home,
on the rocky crag and stronghold.
²⁹ From there he spies out the prey;
his eyes behold it from far away.
³⁰ His young ones suck up blood,
and where the slain are, there is he.”

40 And the Lord said to Job:

² “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

 Job 38-40:2

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