Mamajojo's Muse

"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say; here am I.
If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Isaiah 58: 6-11


Friday, July 16, 2021

 

On my walks to the lake, I watch the hawks and turkey vultures and recite Hopkins' poem to them. It helps to keep it stashed in my memory! Here it is, along with my own response to the power of The Windhover.



 The Windhover 

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 

To Christ our Lord 

I caught this morning morning's minion, king- 

dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding 

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding 

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing 

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 

As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding 

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding 

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! 

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here 

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! 

No wonder of it: shéer plod makes plough down sillion 

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah, my dear, 

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion. 



Shadow Wing 

By Kristen Swanson 

To Christ our Lord 

A curl of early air slips in where I 

lie warm, cocooned in darkness. Now I’m caught, 

dragged through raw grey space between this 

Insubstantial dream and sharp-edged morning. 

The sweet decay of dying leaves sings morning’s 

fallen rapture, but like a cruel minion 

sent to me from some inchoate kingdom, 

memory sets upon my chest a stone of 

Grief. No breath but sorrow’s gasp in daylight’s 

brightening air, obeisance to the dauphin, 

despair. Yet leaping lights that wing-dapple 

counterpane and wall call to a different dawn. 

To rise and meet candescent day I’m drawn 

By courage dressed in feathers, valorous Falcon. 

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