Poetry Sunday

Whenever I don't have time to blog, I've decided to post one of my favourite poems. In university, I shared a tiny room with my French Canadian roomate. We had tiny wooden beds that pulled out from the wall and cupboards that hung out over the pushed in bed. My side of the room was plastered with printed poetry and scribbled poetry from my pen... Needless to say, i didn't get my damage deposit back at the end of the year even though they tore down those rooms the next year. haa! Here is one of my favourites...

W. H. Auden


Stop all the clocks,
cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

When I Hear the Praises Start...

My son, My son, why are you striving
You can't add one thing to what's been done for you
I did it all while I was dying
Rest in your faith, my peace will come to you
For when I hear the praises start
I want to rain upon you
Blessings that will fill your heart
I see no stain upon you
Because you are my child and you know me
To Me you're only holy
Nothing that you've done remains
Only what you do for Me
My child, My child, why are you weeping
You will not have to wait forever
That day and that hour is in My keeping
The day I'll bring you into Heaven
For when I hear the praises start
My child, I want to rain upon you
Blessing that will fill your heart
I see no stain upon you
Because you are My child and you know me
To me you're only holy
Nothing that you've done remains
Only what you do in Me
My precious bride, the day is nearing
When I'll take you in My arms and hold you
I know there are so many things that you've been hearing
But you just hold on to what I have told you
For when I hear the praises start
My bride, I want to rain upon you
Blessings that will fill your heart
I see no stain upon you
Because you are My child, and you know Me
To me you're only holy
Nothing that you've done will remain
Only what you do for me

--Keith Green--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1GjhqalbYQ

Human Life

"Human Life does not move with the regularity of a clock

In living there are gaps and silences

When the soul stands still in it's flight through abysses

And then there come times of trial and times of struggle

When we grow old without knowing it."

(Hamlin Garland from "Main Travelled Roads")

...or when we wish we were 2 again.

Pied Beauty

I fell in love with the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins in University. This is one that I memorized at the time. I love it because it's not a striving for perfection. It's not a whiny defeatists resignation to imperfection either....wallowing in self-pity. Instead it's a call to praise God for what he is birthing in us and around us even when what we see is imperfect or not what we expected...or even seems ugly to us at the time. It is a call to keep our eyes on the One who *is* perfect. There is a bigger picture.


Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89).

Pied Beauty


GLORY be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.


All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.