Good Writing
You know it when you see it,
Like pornography or art,
It’s elusive just a bit
But always has a beating heart.
In fact, it fits with the tradition
of setting something good apart,
to teach the worthiest transmission
mind-to-mind or heart-to-heart.
In auto care, the secret’s out
Like sewing, cleaning, or all above,
And there can be no bloody doubt
Like Chess it is no more than love.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
I didn’t like you very much,
Books confirm that I shouldn’t,
But that really doesn’t matter.
There is that aspect of Christianity,
That is about telling the truth.
You got that. You told the truth,
Loudly, radically, plainly,
Before the Nazis. That sort of truth,
Happened to mean death to them.
So you walked toward that truth,
Loudly, radically, plainly.
Martha Graham (1894-1991)
There are geniuses who tend,
To die, and then that’s their end.
But some there are whose brilliant mind,
Gets passed to those who’re left behind.
For a while, it doesn’t matter,
I think that you were of the latter.
Daniel Chester French (1850-1931)
It’s become much easier to be a fool
Through art, ever since photography’s been around.
Before, you could rely on being one of those,
Skilled in making an image that looked like its Prototype.
The art could remain hidden.
You were of the last generation where that was
Possible, as the sculptures placed around your
Summer estate cry out so eloquently.
It was the last generation when Lincoln,
Had to look like Lincoln.
You were of the last generation for whom bravery,
Was not required, to be an artist, like it now is.
One can no longer rest on draftsmanship.
This makes you no less an artist than the many who
Came after you.
On the Back Porch of the Time-Share
As I sit here on the back porch,
I see the intense green of the trees,
I hear the little brook babbling,
I smell the remnants of some barbecue,
I taste my iced coffee,
I feel the pages I turn in this book of Thomas Merton’s poetry.
It’ll all be destroyed by an atom bomb.
This will happen soon.
In the meantime, I will enjoy it as much as possible.
With gratitude.
Anton Chekov (1860-1904)
“Medicine is my lawful wife,”
You used to say,
“Literature is my mistress.”
You were just surprised you could make money at it.
But so could anyone, who changed the landscape of
Drama and the short story like you did.
In other words: no one.
I like to think of Sonia’s last speech in
“Uncle Vanya.”
Which beautifully expresses
our need for a belief in heaven.
And I keep coming back to some of the last lines of “Three Sisters:”
Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay.
Pure nonsense that also gets us by.
Spiritual Practice II
I’m happy today (and it all passes),
And sad tomorrow, you lads and lasses.
Some think the point is happiness all day,
But that’s not true, no matter what they say.
The trick is not in happiness (with sad deferred),
But seeing neither one of them’s preferred.
Age and the Body
In just a month more, seventy-two I’ll be.
How’d that happen? Most mysteriously.
It is the decade when my people die.
Go check the graveyard where they all do lie.
Though I was born in ‘54, the past,
It seems like life went on, and oh so fast.
And I became an old man and a fool,
I thought me an exception to the rule.
We occupy these bodies just a while,
The greater part of life’s without them. Smile.
Language
When we perceive that things are not,
Dual at all, then all we’ve got,
Is language. It won’t do the work,
Who thinks it does is just a jerk.
Maria Skobstova II
When Christianity lost all of its passion,
A new American movement came in fashion.
That Great Awakening brought feelings into play.
The evangelicals are their heirs today.
But what we speak of when we talk of “God,”
Is way beyond emotion, that’s not odd.
But it is heresy, to insist emotion’s king,
The evangelicals, it’s all that they can bring.
I saw a film they made of that soup kitchen,
Mat. Maria ran in Paris (it was bitchin’),
But she was reimagined one of them
Despite what she had written down. Amen.
The worst thing is they come in poised to teach
And though Repentance is within their reach,
They ignore it, favoring being right.
And that’s their problem, all the day and night.
Eternity
A simple little act of kindness,
lasts forever, and our blindness,
Doesn’t make it go away.
It is eternal, as they say.
That’s good news for all of us who breathe.
Eternal life, I do believe,
Haps anytime we say, “G’day,”
To one who seldom gets his way.
It’s just enough. It lasts forever.
It goes away exactly never.
And, if for him, you have to die,
It will be clear. I do not lie.
Acts of hatred don’t endure,
The same old way. Of that I’m sure.
Past and future, they are porous.
Eternity is here before us.
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