....that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence.
Wendell Berry, The Art Of The Commonplace
In Praise of Mindfulness*
by T. A. Fry
At prayer in a shawl of uncertainty,
Alive with infirm fortunes of fate.
Gratitude's my idol of clarity,
Sly though the sorrows lying in wait.
Acquire fierceness by reckoning hope.
Weigh carefully what resides in my mind.
Accept being alive as formidable.
And through acceptance payment in kind.
Release me from mean hopes and cheap pleasures.
Abide sufficiency barren of blame.
Have mercy on each one's deficiency.
Finish what remains! Without dishonor
to myself or harm to others. On this day,
Support the stumbling on the way.
*The second stanza is based on portions of a prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson titled, For Grace, from Prayers Written at Vaillima. 1904.
Today's blog post marks my 1,000th blog entry on Fourteenlines.blog. I have achieved the goal I set out for myself in the fall of 2017 having no idea what lay in store. Lots of things go through my mind in reaching this milestone. I never envisioned how the world around me would change during these past 7 years, nor how much I would change. As a blogger, I have been resolute in attempting to find poetry that interested me and hoped it would interest those of you who regularly or occasionally read Fourteenlines.
The value of poetry for me has always been inspiration. I enjoy the mental stimulation it provides, how it nurtures my conscious and subconscious. In writing this blog I have let curiosity be my guide. I realize it creates a herky, jerky experience for the reader, as I jump across time, topics, poetry styles and poets. I always felt that was part of the fun of Fourteenlines, as a reader, you never knew what you were going to find.
The two poems in today's post, come from my book of personal prayers that I have written over the past decade. I consider these poems, never really finished, they continue to challenge me to think about them in relation to the past, present and future and likely will continue to command revising, as my lens changes.
Thank you to all who have encouraged me and provided feedback on this journey. I hope you will continue to visit Fourteenlines. I will share more about my vision for this website's future in coming months, but it will be a resource to sit with and read some of your favorite poems for many years to come. Happy 1,000!
The Capacity For Reverence
by T. A. Fry
Let's talk of Love and where should we begin?
There is a Love from which I came, I pour
It from myself, the creator within,
Divine slivers of eternal power.
But what if Love could only beget life?
The capacity for reverence is respect -
For death. Mortal souls clutching a knife,
Skinning ego of desire's neglect,
Flaying the heart of muddled ignorance,
Deboning loss on the mudstone of bliss,
'Til life's an epiphany of wonder.
Hearing in the red bird's song only - "Yes!"
A gasp of Aummm in anguished beauty,
Shrill with the entirety of my duty.
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