Advent

Fading Coal

/ Korin Thomas / 2 Comments

Waiting…

Waiting…

Wind flutter on fading coal
in this longing season –
shrouded sun hanging low
over the gauzed and furry horizon –
the reaches of self and the world.

Wind, tree rustling cold bare branches,
thrilling spaces between dark limbs
quavering deep reaches
of space beyond our pale light,
trilling starlight gleams while stellar grains
float broadcast in cosmic fields.

Poetic dream to be wind brushed
hushed into warmth of words
from within, hidden in heart shadows,
the heat of breath on cold winter nights.

Portland, Oregon – December 14, 2016

“Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, “I will compose poetry.” The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within…”

Percy Bysshe Shelley, In Defense of Poetry (paragraph 39)

http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html

First Snow

/ Korin Thomas / 2 Comments

Today, the first snow
in blown flakes and ice;
cold evergreens, tall pacific
giants bending before the will
of winter come at last.
Freeze the year past gone
now the spring green psalms
the warm summer balm
verdant calm of leaves falling
into the now winter twilight.
Come, night long lasting
until the crackling morning
sun illumines sharp shards
of ice encrusted snow.

Portland, Oregon – December 8, 2016

Advent – Again

/ Korin Thomas / 4 Comments

advent-pic-for-2016

This liminal season in somber tones
of rain as sounds on rooftops
dripping splashes from creaking eves
blowing swirls of drizzle around summer chairs
forgotten in the sodden backyard tangle.

These darkening hours in shades of gray
among the wilted stems and withered leaves
in a wet mess where in spring grew the green garden
budding in bright lime and lush leaves.
Now, an oozing palette of soppy yellow-brown
fused in an organic, slippery, molding life.

Advent – the threshold over which I hang
suspended between the earth and heaven –
posing still the questions I asked when,
as a child, I turned out the lamp to sleep
or, later, woke to a dark and breathless silence.

The only answer I’ve received
among all the bright or forlorn possibilities
is the answer of the season:

Wait.

Be still.

Awaken.

Portland, Oregon – Advent eve, November 27, 2016

Mary

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Fr. Peter Gray - Mary and Child.jpgFor now you may love –
your child held against the wintry cold,
your dreams flickering before you in the fire.
Would you could hold him forever as on his day of birth
when he first looked into your eyes.
But, O Mother, though tears await you
and this son of yours be taken from you,
you will never forget his tender child’s touch,
his first crying or his last;
all his many words spoken to you
after a day of play or from a bitter cross.
On that day, Mary, as on the first,
you shall be joy-filled, God-bearing,
remembered with him for all time,
and we will join you in your song of praise.

1983-84 – Menlo Park, California

Fr. Peter Wm. Gray was a teacher of mine. In 1983 or 84 we collaborated on a Christmas card. His artwork, above, we did not use and I don’t know why because it is stunningly evocative. My poem accompanied the card with another piece of his artwork, also good, but not so striking as the piece seen here.

Joseph

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There are leaves in the Garden of Gethsemane
that grow old, wither, die, and fall to the ground.
Joseph walked among them.
She waited with fearful longing,
her face, filled with joy,
her hands, trembling with fear.
She whispered words, like falling leaves,
carrying Joseph’s heart to the earth.
He did not take his eyes from her face.
He walked about in her dark eyes,
walked among the trees of the garden,
tasted the fruit of the vine;
drinking deep intoxicating draughts.
Her hands stilled,
she smiled.
He raised his eyes to the heavens,
burst into laughter,
and shattered the starry night!

We do not know much else about Joseph –
he was a leaf in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Winter/Christmas – 1988, Las Vegas, Nevada

Which-A-Way O Soul

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Which-a-way, O Soul, this-a-year?   
Which way leads to the clearing,
which to the thicket of thorn and nettle?
Not all the same, not all these falling years
lined with green shoots and golden spinning leaves. 
Put on your coat, O Soul, your dark down layers.
Open the door, for she comes and she waits.
Step to the days, past the lighted trees and frozen angels.
Here now the green shoots,
there the fresh leaves and flowers of spring,
here the lush and fragrant stilling heat,
there the golden spilling leaves
in pools of ruffled water. 
Look up, O Soul, awaken!
She comes again, clothed in night,
at her feet the path, before her gaze the wintry fields.
Which-a-way, O Soul, this-a-year?

Seattle, Washington – December 2011

Advent Mouse

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Some years, Advent arrives quietly
like a mouse who hides behind walls
leaving behind crumbs of rain swept days,
nights when the moon passed through broken clouds,
warm evenings and starlit mornings.

Other years Advent arrives like a crazy mouse
who runs back and forth before our eyes
during a well-planned and lit cocktail party.
We were not ready for him –
his perfect absurdity and his insouciant bravura.
We excuse him to our guests who stand on chairs
hoping they will forgive us and return some day.

This year? That wild mouse!
The extraordinary mouse who assails the year
with babies, houses, and sickness;
awakenings in the night,
hammering in the daylight.

We opened the door of the new year and in he ran.
There was little we could do but watch and scamper from chair to chair.

Seattle, Washington – December 2006

Advent – For Our Enemies

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It is now the solemn season of peace
when we wait for the Holy One;
wait for a sacred stillness and loving-kindness
a peace beyond all imagining
to be born within us.
We are the Holy Ones
who give birth to the peace for which we long.
We pray for our enemies,
for men and women –
today in foreign cities
tonight in our own towns –
whose thoughts are tangled up in a violent story
whose ending is too terrible to say.
We bring them, especially them,
the peace we seek.
They are wounded, fearful, angry, and afraid
as we are.
They are confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed,
like us, so like us.
They are mourning the loss of someone
or some ideal of a life they thought could be theirs,
just as we mourn our dead and our broken dreams.
They are strangers in a strange land.
We pray for them.
We welcome them in our deep and open hearts,
hearts not crushed in spite of reasons to be crushed,
hearts that still have a place for our enemies.
If they do not have a welcoming place in us
then they have no place at all.
If they have no place at all
they will bring the fruit of their emptiness to bear
in dark and consuming violence.
Our suffering will continue.
This is the day, a day of waiting
to see whether our hearts will open or close.

The season asks us to choose.

Portland, Oregon – December 2015

Advent Vigilance

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In winter I must take care
or darkness will overwhelm me.
I will forget the silence of the earth
spinning in the glistening heavens.
I will see clouds without rain
darkness without stars
sunlight without warmth.
In Winter I must be vigilant
or I will lose my way
in thickets of tangled thought. 
I will forget to walk out the door,
to pick up one foot after another.
I will be drawn back in, out of the rain,
by a cunning, persistent lure.
I will forget that always, always,
I am leaving some thing, some place behind –
clutching at my clothing, dragging at my steps,
encumbering my arms, closing my eyes.
But too late. Even for the past –
what was or was not – too late.

 Again, again and again, it is Advent.
The coming of some small thing –
some laughter behind me,
some shouting around the corner,
whispers in the eaves, scratches on the door.
A sudden turning –
a pause, a listen, a quickening pulse.
A gathering of will in the face
of something sacred, scared, scarred,
wrapped in wind, rain, cold
like a god forgotten
who will not forget,
pursuing through the days and nights.

Seattle, Washington – December 2003