The Living One

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.” (Revelation 1:17–18)

A beautiful film

I recently watched again Robert Redford’s film of A River Runs Through It, based on the story by Norman Maclean. It is, I think, a wonderful film. There are some humourous moments, for example:

“As a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a damn mess, and that only by picking up God’s rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. To him all good things, trout as well as eternal salvation, come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy. So my brother and I learned to cast Presbyterian style, on a metronome.”

“I understand he’s changed the spelling of our name, MacLean with a capital L. Now everyone will think we’re lowland Scots.”

“Her family were methodists, a denomination my father referred to as baptists who could read.”

It is also a beautifully sad film, with quite profound insights into life and family. Here is part of the father’s sermon towards the end of the film:

“Each one of us here today will at one time look upon a loved one and ask the same question, ‘we are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything is needed?’ For it is true that we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding.”

If you’ve never seen it, it’s a beauty.

Psalm 70 — A poem

Psalm 70 – O Lord, come quickly

For the leader. Of David. To remember.

God, to save me
LORD, to aid me — hurry!

Let them be shamed and disgraced,
Who seek my life,
turned-back and debased,
Who love my hurt.
Let them for shame turn their face,
Who scoff “Ha, Ha!”

Let them exult and in you find joy,
All who seek you.
And let them always say, “God is great”,
Who love your salvation.

But I, I am poor and in need.
God, hurry to me.
You are my help and my saviour.
LORD, don’t delay!

Psalm 2 – A poem

Why have the nations mobilized,
Peoples plotting pointless plans.
Rulers have conspired together,
Earth’s kings take their stand,
Against the LORD and against his anointed!
“Let us tear off their fetters,” they say,
And cast their ropes aside!”
He whose home is heaven laughs
The Lord their boasts derides.
Then he speaks to them in anger,
His rage terrifies by its sound:
“I have installed my king
On Zion, my holy mount.”

Let me recount the great decree
Hear what the LORD has said to me,
“You are me son,
I have fathered you this day.
Only ask me:
And your inheritance will be nations
The ends of the earth — your possessions.
With an iron rod you will smash them,
Like a potter’s vessel, you will shatter them.”

So now you kings, take thought.
Be warned you judges of the land.
Serve the LORD with reverence,
Rejoice in trepidation.
Kiss the son, lest he anger,
And you perish by his hand.
For quickly burns the fire
Of his righteous indignation.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

On the other side, a poem

On the other side of the mountain,
The fog began to clear.
And as the rain eased off,
I could see a little further
The way to go from here.

On the other side of the forest,
The gum trees dropped away
And only a little scrub and sand
Divided me from the magnitude
Of where the ocean lay.

Underneath the surface,
The world was all transformed
By silence and filtered light
And fish, which cautiously avoided,
But, curious, also swarmed.

On the other side of the fog and rain
That block my way from view,
The doubts and fears that threaten
To undo my self, and ridicule
The things I thought I knew,

I know there will be space and light,
Clarity and peace.
The world filled again with light
And beauty, letting
Belief come with ease.

Yet at the edge there’s trouble,
Confusion and regret.
The in-between lingers stubbornly,
And the staggerings remind me:
I am not at the other side yet.

Mid-Term Break, by Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—
He had always taken funerals in his stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were ‘sorry for my trouble’;
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

From Death of a Naturalist (1966).

My November Guest, by Robert Frost

I realise I’ve posted a few poems lately—sorry for those who aren’t so into this. But I thought I’d post one more I came across this morning, by Robert Frost, called “My November Guest”. It is, I think, a poem about what we might now call Seasonal Affective Disorder, though as those who have read my essay on Sadness (see essays page) will probably guess, I feel we need to say more (though not less) than this. Frost speaks of his sorrow, who comes in November, and teaches him to see the world differently. I feel there is too much embrace of sorrow here (though I’m still not sure about how the last stanza affects this judgment); but it’s a beautiful and sad and interesting poem.

MY NOVEMBER GUEST

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
  Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
  She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
  She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
  Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
  The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
  And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
  The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
  And they are better for her praise.

Jacob — A poem

“Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” (Genesis 32:24)
“I walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 116:9)

Jabok. The name sends a chill through me
even now,
years later,
when my sons have grown and my flocks are fat,
and I walk with a stick. So carefully.

For I remember that night,
how I sent my wives and children across the ford,
and
inexplicably,
went back. Compelled by what?

My heart was full
—could I really have slept?—
of the day’s prayers blurted out in anxious faith’s bluster.
“Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother.
I am afraid. He will kill us all.”
And it was cold sitting by the water,
looking at the stars,
thinking of stories my Grandfather told.

Sometimes I wonder if it was a dream.
If I only imagine I heard the footsteps,
and turned to see him come upon me,
and pushed back with all my might,
holding him off,
rolling down the bank,
kicking and biting,
and even when he broke my hip
did not let go,
until he blessed me:
“What is your name?” He said.
And I gave it; but never caught his,
and was left to work it all out for myself.
“Prevailed”?
Held on, survived, more like it.

Was it all the lies of fitful sleep,
and so with false hope
that I met Esau next day?
A strange sleep, though, that gives a man a limp;
and “Israel”
—I did not give myself that fame.

No, I did see him.
I held him, face to face
And won my fears and doubts.
And I’m still alive
to remember
Jabok.

Sneezes

Sneezes all have different sounds.
Some are quiet, some are loud.
Some are heavy, others light.
Some can wake you in the night.
Some sound like a cat exploding.
Others like a distant moaning.
Some require whole body movement.
Others sneak out like a truant.
(And some are not just sound, but solids;
Watch out for their stray deposits!)
Yes as surely as the world is round,
Sneezes all have different sounds.

Forgive me for this lapse from more "serious" content. 
We've had a bit of hay-fever at my house lately and I was in a cheerful mood.

An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow, by Les Murray

The word goes round Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There’s a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can’t stop him.

The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk
and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets
which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:
There’s a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.

The man we surround, the man no one approaches
simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps
not like a child, not like the wind, like a man
and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even
sob very loudly — yet the dignity of his weeping

holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him
in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,
and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him
stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds
longing for tears as children for a rainbow.

Some will say, in the years to come, a halo
or force stood around him. There is no such thing.
Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him
but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood,
the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us

trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected
judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream
who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children
and such as look out of Paradise come near him
and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.

Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops
his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit —
and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand
and shake as she receives the gift of weeping;
as many as follow her also receive it

and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more
refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance,
but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing,
the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out
of his writhen face and ordinary body

not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow,
hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea —
and when he stops, he simply walks between us
mopping his face with the dignity of one
man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.

Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.