tunnel ceaselessly I think all the time about invisible work. About the young mother on Welfare I interviewed years ago, who said, “It’s hard. You bring him to the park, run rings around yourself keeping him safe, and there’s no one to say what a good job you’re doing, how you were patient and […]
Spring
Posted on by James Woodward
spring fever Today, look: another day. Waking, wide open, Afraid. Don’t dive into the library, Into yet another book! Reach for your guitar, Let love, let beauty, be what it is we do: You don’t have to fly abroad, in order to kneel And kiss the tarmac! The breeze at dawn has secrets to […]
Music
Posted on by James Woodward
where everything is music Don’t worry about saving these songs! And if one of our instruments breaks, it doesn’t matter. We have fallen into the place where everything is music. The strumming and the flute notes rise into the atmosphere, and even if the whole world’s harp should burn up, there will still be […]
Beginnings and Endings?
Posted on by James Woodward
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make and end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. And every phrase And sentence that is right (where every word is at home, Taking its place to support the others, The word neither diffident nor ostentatious, An […]
Approaching Holy Week
Posted on by James Woodward
a lion of courage When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox: when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through […]
Be Free
Posted on by James Woodward
Rumi has written some of the most astonishing poetry – read on In the end you disappeared, gone beyond sight Strange, the path you took, leaving this world Strange how the beat of your wings destroyed the cage And you flew to the world of the soul. You were a nightingale, drunk amidst the […]
O Greening Branch
Posted on by James Woodward
O greening branch! You stand in your nobility Like the rising dawn. Rejoice now and exult And deign to free the fools we are From our long slavery to ignorance And hold out your hand To raise us up. Hildegard of Bingen
Forgiveness??
Posted on by James Woodward
Looking down on my father’s dead face for the last time my mother said without tears, without smiles without regrets but with civility “Good night Willie Lee, I’ll see you in the morning.” And it was then I knew that the healing of all our wounds is forgiveness that permits a promise of our […]
Greenness
Posted on by James Woodward
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of […]
Speak in poetry not prose please?
Posted on by James Woodward
‘Listen, now, verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty.’ ‘Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil That goes like blood to the poem’s making? Leave it to nature and the […]
What will you do when you grow old?
Posted on by James Woodward
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, […]
Giving shape to Old Age
Posted on by James Woodward
In the Old Age of the Soul I do not choose to dream; there cometh on me Some strange old lust for deeds. As to the nerveless hand of some old warrior Te sword-hilt or the war-worn wonted helmet Brings momentary life and long-fled cunning, So to my soul grown old – […]
Memory
Posted on by James Woodward
Alzheimer’s Patient Oh, how can this be? You and I are losing me Some day soon May be morning Many be noon I will no longer be the me You and I know as me And the answer seems to be Words, and thought, frequently scramble And my conversations seem to ramble. Oh, […]
Patience
Posted on by James Woodward
patience An absolute patience. Trees stand up to their knees in fog. The fog slowly flows uphill. White cobwebs, the grass leaning where deer have looked for apples. The woods from brook to where the top of the hill looks over the fog, send up not one bird. So absolute, it is no other […]
How are we to understand our Life?
Posted on by James Woodward
SO MANY DIFFERENT LENGTHS OF TIME How long is a man’s life, finally? Is it a thousand days, or only one? One week, or a few centuries? How long does a man’s death last? And what do we mean when we say, ‘gone forever’? Adrift in such preoccupations, we seek clarification. We can […]
Seamus Heaney
Posted on by James Woodward
Dennis O’Driscoll Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney (Faber, 2008) Seamus Heaney is regarded as possibly the finest poet of his generation. Although I find some of his writing rather dense and impenetrable, many people have been enriched by the sheer depth and creativity of his clever verse. While his poetry has […]
In Love
Posted on by James Woodward
Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the Muse – Nothing refuse. Leave all for love; Yet, hear me, yet… Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive; Heartily know, […]
Temple
Posted on by James Woodward
We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we […]
Fire and Gold
Posted on by James Woodward
The monotone of the rain is beautiful, And the sudden rise and slow relapse Of the long multitudinous rain. The sun on the hills is beautiful, Or a captured sunset sea-flung, Bannered with fire and gold. A face I know is beautiful- With fire and gold of sky and sea, And […]
These our actors
Posted on by James Woodward
these our actors Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve […]