The Mystic's Christmas

"All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang,
"All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat,
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God's sweet peace upon his face.

"Why sitt'st thou thus?" his brethren cried,
"It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow.

"Above our heads the joy-bells ring,
Without the happy children sing,
And all God's creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born.

"Rejoice with us; no more rebuke
Our gladness with thy quiet look."
The gray monk answered, "Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord's birthday.

"Let heathen Yule fires flicker red
Where thronged refectory feasts are spread;
With mystery-play and masque and mime
And wait-songs speed the holy time!

"The blindest faith may haply save;
The Lord accepts the things we have;
And reverence, howsoe'er it strays,
May find at last the shining ways.

"They needs must grope who cannot see,
The blade before the ear must be;
As ye are feeling I have felt,
And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.

"But now, beyond the things of sense,
Beyond occasions and events,
I know, through God's exceeding grace,
Release from form and time and space.

"I listen, from no mortal tongue,
To hear the song the angels sung;
And wait within myself to know
The Christmas lilies bud and blow.

"The outward symbols disappear
From him whose inward sight is clear;
And small must be the choice of days
To him who fills them all with praise!

"Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest seal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!"

--John Greenleaf Whittier

Talk

My body is
A little
Green sea.

Bears bathe
In it
Then go to

Sleep in the
Basement.
A four-wheeler

Slams past,
And then the
Sea splashes

Around and
Around.
O little sea,

O my body,
Sit here with me
While I just talk.

--Noelle Kocot

Without having asked

"Sometimes there is a force of life like the spring which mysteriously takes shape without your even having asked it to take shape, and this is frightening, it is terribly frightening. ... Being a poet sometimes puts you at the mercy of life, and life is not always merciful." --James Wright

Faith

And into my doubt

the bells rang--

mourning doves and,

later, voices in song.

The dim breath

that left my body, the sliding

away of love,

scattered hairs

on the white sheets--

bodies are used

like weapons

it is what

they are meant for.

But the door, the door

is in the mind....

You can step out of

violence and into

sky.

--Meghan O'Rourke

There Are So Many Rooms in this House

In a dream I heard him say "egrets"

but as a verb, as in "sound egrets through space"

a mild soaring

*

In another dream, he corrects himself: what I mean to say

is egress,

pretty abandon

*

Some nights we recognize the latch in our hands

as something simple, like a daisy

other nights it is the reason we fail to love

or organize sound into the meat of our failure.

*

To hear yourself dreaming in someone else's

mouth--that is, a mind (your own, others) brought

to bear in blind, quiet garden. Lay here. Listen.

The throat of your voice on wings.

--Christina Mengert

Writing:Running

"Like writing, running is so much about mind over matter. There are times when you have to override the discomfort and keep pushing. That capacity to endure and then prevail is just amazing." --Susan Orlean, author and New Yorker staff writer

The Poetry of Creatures

"I think that anything in our world now that slows us down is to be valued. And maybe is a gift and maybe even a calling from God."

Listen.