2009 November

To James First Bishop of Shrewsbury on the
25th Year of his Episcopate July 28. 1876

1

THOUGH no high-hung bells or din
Of braggart bugles cry it in—
What is sound? Nature’s round
Makes the Silver Jubilee.

2

Five and twenty years have run
Since sacred fountains to the sun
Sprang, that but now were shut,
Showering Silver Jubilee.

3

Feasts, when we shall fall asleep,
Shrewsbury may see others keep;
None but you this her true,
This her Silver Jubilee.

4

Not today we need lament
Your wealth of life is some way spent:
Toil has shed round your head
Silver but for Jubilee.

5

Then for her whose velvet vales
Should have pealed with welcome, Wales,
Let the chime of a rhyme
Utter Silver Jubilee.

Unshaven and thin, with an angular face
He’s lain on my mattress
for several days.
A cast-iron shadow hangs down the stair,
the lips, huge and bulging, smuggle and flare.

“Hello, Russian poets, — his voice sounds wistful —
shall I give you a razor or, maybe, a pistol?
Are you a genius? Disdain all this chaos…
Or, p’rhaps, you will say your confessional prayers?
Or take a newspaper, clip out a bar
and roll self-reproach like you roll a cigar?”

Why is he cuddling you when I’m there?
Why is he trying my scarf on? How dare?
He’s squinting at my cigarettes… Oh yes!

Keep off me! Keep off!
SOS! SOS!

© Copyright Alec Vagapov’s translation

Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes.
Homes for sandpipers—the script of their feet is on the sea shingles—they write in the morning, it is gone at noon—they write at noon, it is gone at night.
Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and feet.

Clouds rosy-tinted in the setting sun,
Depths of the azure eastern sky between,
Plains where the poplar-bordered highways run,
Patched with a hundred tints of brown and green, —
Beauty of Earth, when in thy harmonies
The cannon’s note has ceased to be a part,
I shall return once more and bring to these
The worship of an undivided heart.
Of those sweet potentialities that wait
For my heart’s deep desire to fecundate
I shall resume the search, if Fortune grants;
And the great cities of the world shall yet
Be golden frames for me in which to set
New masterpieces of more rare romance.

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr gro

I Years had been from Home
And now before the Door
I dared not enter, lest a Face
I never saw before

Stare solid into mine
And ask my Business there –
“My Business but a Life I left
Was such remaining there?”

I leaned upon the Awe –
I lingered with Before –
The Second like an Ocean rolled
And broke against my ear –

I laughed a crumbling Laugh
That I could fear a Door
Who Consternation compassed
And never winced before.

I fitted to the Latch
My Hand, with trembling care
Lest back the awful Door should spring
And leave me in the Floor –

Then moved my Fingers off
As cautiously as Glass
And held my ears, and like a Thief
Fled gasping from the House –

Something
cold is in the air,
an aura of ice
and phlegm.
All day I’ve built
a lifetime and now
the sun sinks to
undo it.
The horizon bleeds
and sucks its thumb.
The little red thumb
goes out of sight.
And I wonder about
this lifetime with myself,
this dream I’m living.
I could eat the sky
like an apple
but I’d rather
ask the first star:
why am I here?
why do I live in this house?
who’s responsible?
eh?

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, “He never bungles!”
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
“You mean,” he said, “a crocodile.”

Under the table, no. That last was stunning,
that flagon had breasts. Some men grow down cursed.
Why drink so, two days running?
two months, O seasons, years, two decades running?
I answer (smiles) my question on the cuff:
Man, I been thirsty.

The brake is incomplete but white costumes
threaten his rum, his cointreau, gin-&-sherry,
his bourbon, bugs um all.
His go-out privilege led to odd red times,
since even or especially in hospital things get hairy.
He makes it back without falling.

He sleep up a short storm.
He wolf his meals, lamb-warm.

Their packs bump on their’ -blades, tan canteens swing,
for them this day my dawn’s old, Saturday’s IT,
through town toward a Scout hike.
For him too, up since two, out for a sit
now in the emptiest freshest park, one sober fling
before correspondence & breakfast.

More than a noun, a period of time,
forty days each year, between Ash Wednesday,
and the joy of Easter morn
Lent is a verb, a way of being, of living,
of making different choices,
when temptation comes
We are to choose, as Christ did,
not as Adam, Eve did,
when faced with moral choices
To understand and abide, by the law,
the rule, the orders of the creator,
the loving God, who called us very good
at the end of creation
To do justice, now that we know
the difference between good and evil,
learned on that fateful day
in the beautiful garden

February 10, 2008
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7,
Matthew 4:1-11, Genesis 1:28-31, and
the sermon, “My Brother’s Keeper”,
by Pastor Ruth L. Foss,
Sanbornville United Methodist Church,
Wakefield, NH, 2/10/08
and the sermon, “Seeing With New Eyes”,
by the Rev. Lori Eldredge,
Wesley United Methodist Church,
Concord, NH 2/10/08