20090612

The Record of Rhyme

Cleaning out your backpack at the end of the schoolyear is like excavating relics at an archaeological dig. Here we encounter the record of a year past, artifacts that clue us into a way of life now extinct, lost forever to the sands of time. Here we see the notes that remind us that, yes, we were just as human then as we are now. And here we discover fragments of that really cool pen that got destroyed by the crushing weight of textbooks.

But what I unearthed today was actually quite a find, at least for me: fragments of poetry that were written at various points throughout the year. I reproduce them here, merely so that I don’t have to preserve a bunch of wrinkled scraps of paper. Enjoy!

Meditations on a Fake Spring Day
How humble is a tree?
It sits making shade,
not asking what time it might
come to our aid.

How patient is a tree?
Not worried to find
a tree like itself,
whose colors can bind,
and jointly in vistas
show glory from God—
How patient is a tree?
More patient than me.

Lord, grant me the wisdom
implanted of old,
in the vein of each leaf,
the bark’s every fold.

Why we dream
Dreams will make on weak—
Salvation’s earned through life, not mind—
But if I know not what I seek,
How can I truly find?

7 Sacraments (still a work in progress)
I.
Guided by a Hand unknown,
Water made a path from strife;
Always caring for Your own,
Now you lead us to Your Life.
II.
Food made from the fruit of Cain,
Humble, now exalted, saves:
Feed us Love no man can feign,
Making heroes out of knaves.
III.
Catalogues of human vices
Plague our souls in human state;
Your Self-emptied sacrifices
Prove no sin can be too great.

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