A Momentary Taste of Being

One line from this echoes through my head.  Many people get tunes in their heads that they can't kick out--I get fragments of poetry.  So, I'm kicking it out by giving it to any who will listen. from "Ode to a Nightingale" John Keats Darkling I listen; and, for many a time   I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,   To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die,           To cease upon the midnight with no pain,     While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad           In such an ecstasy!   Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—     To thy high requiem become a sod. I listened to this play round and round in my head as I was out walking at lunch time.  The building we presently occupy backs up to a love...

Mr. Wilson offers a deep reflection on the gospel reading from a few weeks back. I am at a loss to say anything that would make this more worth your while.  My Catholic friends would all do themselves a favor by going to read this reflection.  I would wish for more such.  Certainly more practical and worthwhile than much of what I hear as homilies in my church.

Reflection on Presence An excerpt: I see it all the time, people who are sleepwalking through life, focused on some personal thought, carrying on a continual, meaningless chatter or text conversation with other sleepwalkers. They’re dangerous, when they’re not comic relief like the lady at the car wash. But I catch myself doing it, distracted when I should be present, seeking entertainment and confirmation from online rather than those who are right there with me. It’s so easy to become lost in the ghost world, even in a glorious fall day like today.

It seems too often that in our serious consideration of poetry, we forget the foundations of poetry.  It is not often that one hears a modern poet tell us that we should be reading Keats and Shelley and Byron, much less poets of more antique vintage.  And that is a shame, because there are pleasure in poetry--not merely that more recent. And so, as a specific against the chauvinism of the new, I offer this excerpt from one of the great Romantics. (The "its" in the first line refers to youthful abandon.) from "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" William Wordsworth And all its aching joys are now no more And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts have followed; for such loss, I would believe abundant recompense. For I have leanred To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten...