Theology

“God is only a name for our wonder.”

                               -- Alfred Kazin, Journals

It is not so much a matter

of whether he is or is not,

but what we think he is about:

why not a phoebe before dawn,

butterflies on a summer afternoon,

or a painting by Frida;

Beethoven’s quartet in A minor,

some unexpected kindness,

or quatrains from dear Emily?

In short, he lives in all the gifts

(like asters at the end of summer)

that we cannot explain,

which are of this world,

and, equally, of places still unseen.

Thoughts at the End of Summer

I’m listening to Brahms,

those somber passages

of the Clarinet Quintet,

and posed on my lap is a page

of sober verses from Mary Oliver.

As the days are inexorably shorter,

every thought seems poised,  

to point me away from August,

and tonight, outside my window

the cicadas are in full concert,

a movement towards autumn,

a diminishing, a farewell;

but who can say

if this is a lesser gift?

Purposes

There is a grand tree,

the tallest in its grove,

not far from my back door,

most likely a walnut,

and just clinging to life,

sending out only a few leaves

in this dry summer,

and at once I am curious:

what does a tree know?

There is no answer

to this perhaps silly question--

but it could be like me,

who knows that the end

is not a forever away,

but close enough to loom,

and like that tree

I am still struggling

to put out new growth,

aiming to be of some use,

though maybe not so well

as my neighbor, the tree,

which has not forgotten

how to welcome the birds.

On the Eve of a Memorial Service

(for Hugh James Bustin, Jr., 1924-2016)

I came here to mourn (or so I told myself),

but this is no place to write an elegy:

the quiet waters of Cedar Pond,

its flotilla of geese, and the black ducks

floating in their matrimonial ease

refuse to countenance sorrow.

The happy notes of a song sparrow,

the endless chant of a yellowthroat

and that confident singer, the mockingbird,

all conspire to sway my thoughts

from consideration of loss,

and solemnity seems unlikely.

Even those pedestrian singers,

the house sparrow and the redwing,

will not let me dwell for long

on a life now missing;

all this sight and sound pushing me

towards some unwilled celebration,

and at last I surrender:
mourning will wait for another day.

No Day Is Lost

“And then-- there is is a profit in all things for anyone really in search of it.”

-- Albert Camus (11/22/1937), from Notebooks, 1935-1942

Some days seem far removed

from any wonder or miracle,

too much trash and paperwork,

too many aches and pains,

and you might wish, vainly,

that such time would vanish,

erased from the calendar,

hours you did not need--

and yet, you’d be wrong.

Somewhere, in some corner

there is a glimpse or a thought

unknown to any other day,

one waiting for you to stumble

into its illumination,

some discovery which will send you

in the direction of tomorow

with that best of all possible feelings,

some great task accomplished.  

Joy

Tonight there is a moon,

more than half, almost gibbous,

brightening the ground,

a gathering of stars,

perhaps a planet or two

in the clear spaces

between the streams of clouds,

and why would I not be happy?

It is a glorious world

where I spent the day

among carefree children

whose movements set to rest

all my fears and doubts,

for at least one more day.

What is this all for,

if not the joy of play,

and now this heavenly beauty

before I go to sleep?

Summer Evening, 1976

On summer evenings in Oak Park,

after the quiet of supper,

the talk and laughter of play

danced again along the street

from porch to steps to sidewalk.

It was a world full of people

until the signal for retreat,

a street light touching the dark

with its anxious chemical glow.

Through open bedroom windows

came murmurs and half-heard sounds,

the background of a bedtime story:

thinning traffic on the boulevard,

a distant train sliding to its stop

and pools of spreading silence,

the day conceding to the night.