New poem: "A Thought too Big to Even Think"

 

A Thought too Big to Even Think

 

There is something that I want to say,

but I cannot say it; it will not come

out the way I want, and I must find

a way to get it right. It has to do with

life—everything has to do with life;

but what wants to come out is terrified

of dying. It’s true what they say, writers

write what we’re afraid to think, but

this thought’s too big to even think: life

is divine, it is perfect, and it naturally

manifests the will of its creator, and all

paths in life lead to the thought that there

is nothing but the self and God, and it

presses upon me with tired vengeance. I

try and try to get it out—one more poem,

one more story, one more novel; but it

forever eludes my precious muse,

and renders me silent.

New poem: "La Forza"

 

La Forza

 

“He’s a wreck,” they all said, surprising

them all because they thought he was so strong;

but the shock of her loss took la forza out of him,

and it would take him a long time to recover

from life’s cruel blow; —

 

He took her for granted, obtusely blind to the fear

of losing her, and when she got hit with a brain

bleed and not expected to live, he reeled in such pain

it brought him to his knees and final surrender, and

he let her go back to God, who is our home; —

 

To the wonder of all, she came back to him safe

and whole, as he had prayed to the healing saint from

his native land, crystalizing his anguish and pain

into the precious gem he would love, of all the words

he has ever written, to be remembered for—our life

is a journey through vanity to humility; and la forza

filled the hole in his chastened soul and made

him whole again, stronger than before.

New poem: "In the Wonder of God's Grandeur"

 

In the Wonder of God’s Grandeur

 

There’s a personal story in every story that tells

the real story of everyone’s story, and no two

stories are the same, but as dissimilar as every

story may be, none is stranger than the story

of prize-winning poet Stanley Kunitz.

 

At Harvard, where he earned his bachelor’s

and master’s degrees, by happy circumstance

he chanced upon the poem “God’s Grandeur”

in the library (it was the merciful law of divine

synchronicity calling him home), and he fell

into a life-long trance writing poetry.

 

His entire adult life, he wrote and taught poetry

to find his way through life, a blessing that came

to him “like rapture breaking on the mind,” a

habit dangerously seductive to the creative spirit

that transformed his individual experience

into the meaning of his existence; —

 

But not enough to satisfy the longing that Gerard

Manley Hopkins had awakened in his undergraduate

soul with a poem that inflicted him with an immortal

wound of wonder, and when he was asked by Charlie

Rose, “Are you a believer?”, the 10^th Poet Laureate

of the United States, 95-year-old Stanley Kunitz

reflected, and thoughtfully said:

 

“I’m a believer in the energy and value of the spirit,

but I have no deep conviction about the Godhead,

if there is one. I’m willing to be persuaded, but I’m

not ready yet to say yes,” and he went to his lonely

grave at the ripe old age of 100, still wrestling

in the wonder of God’s grandeur.

New poem: "The Promise of Literature"

 

The Promise of Literature

 

Literature is all about story, the more personal

the more satisfying the story, and it’s so easy to fall

in love with literature that it can become an obsessive

passion; but it’s not the stories of literature—

 

Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, Jane Ayre,

“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,”

the Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy, Dickinson’s “letter

to the world”— it’s the promise of literature that pulls

the inquiring mind deeper into literature; —

 

And story after story, the search continues for the sacred

piece of knowledge that will pull it all together; but

as obsessive seeker of story’s secret New Zealander short

story writer Katherine Mansfield came to see, as will

everyone obsessed with literature,

 

Literature is not enough to soothe soul’s longing for more

story. But where can one go to fulfill the promise of literature?

“Give me life,” said Sir John Falstaff, and as brilliant as he was,

even the immortal bard failed to resolve the mystery of story.

We live, we die, and “the rest is silence,” said Hamlet;

that’s the promise of literature.

New poem: "Such is the Way of Life"

 

Such Is the Way of Life

 

Nothing brings people closer together

more than a great disaster, be it a global pandemic

or catastrophic weather, —

 

And nothing will cause people to rise up and rebel

more than the suppression of their freedom

to be who and what they’re born to be, —

 

Just as nothing will teach us how to grow in love

more than suffering, whether it be self-created

or inflicted upon us; —

 

Nothing that is wrong, and nothing is right,

it is whatever the individual needs to further the

personal maturation process, —

 

And the time will come, as sure as 2 + 2 = 4, when

our world will be turned upside down to set us

right, for such is the way of life.