Meditations in Fast Times: 20. No one could ever believe

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                20.

No one could ever believe

The report that said “leave.”

Houses, muddied and upended
,
Mark the place where lives ended.

Once cozy and comfortable rooms

Have been crushed into tombs;
All hope of rescue and repair,

         Has been replaced by despair.

Years of flood, following drought,
Stirred the soft hills about,

Until dead water over soggy land

Gave way. Nothing could stand
up to this path of liquid soil,
And so we stoop now to grim toil;

Those who here claimed rights by birth.

         Now lie in the arms of earth.

O God, we return those to you
Whose losses we mourn anew
After each passing report.

You did not lose what you gave;
Returning, we lose not, though we crave
assurance of a comforting sort.

Life is one horizon, as also is death—
Only You understand the fullness of breath
—Relieve us from sorrow, grant us resort.

Thanks to You, ever renewed and unending,
Unquenchable Life love serves by the tending
Of each generation, in every place and port.

Amen.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 19. Time and again, before and after

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                19.

Time and again, before and after,
Time and again, betwixt and between,
Time is eternal witness of timeless now,
a sweet, through-composed music
interwoven through the give and take
of every atom that constitutes here and home.

The part that is singular awareness
may be a guess, but it is a gift,
and nothing mere.

Sadly,
too many moments pass unattended,
too much of the mystery is missed
for the unnatural thrill,
the unfit distraction.

Many who claim to seek the
impossible union
miss the point
entirely.

Naming,
seeing,
practice,
reflection
and action
are, each and all,
the manifest,
vibrant and musical
intersection
of all that is.

Here is the sweet music
that stirs the rose petals
and each blade of grass,
while lulling tired eyes
and sweet dream bliss—
Here and always,
here and now,
and how!

Here and now is,
and is incarnate in everything,
Time and again, betwixt and between,
Time and again, before and after,
timeless here will always be now and home.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 18. The deer thirst for those brooks

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                18.

The deer thirst for those brooks,
whose waters are diverted by crooks,
who then waste them away or pollute.

Likewise, my soul longs for that draught
surest and purest, wild and without craft;
rich and intoxicating while dilute.

Tears instead have been my cup,
the only food on which to sup;
I am derided as one of ill repute.

I am empty; my soul is poured out,
haunted by thoughts filled with doubt,
my distress, like my thirst, is acute.

From one voice to another, deep woe calls;
amid the white noise of distant falls,
it echoes among the rocks: permute!

Is the call from Another or my own voice?
No matter, it does indicate choice:
hope must in a different path or pursuit.

Now to have found pristine riverbanks,
sorrow is set aside; I give thanks
for this gift, and fare forward, resolute.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 17. There is no end to the soundless wailing

Note to Readers:  “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others. 

                17.

          There is no end to the soundless wailing,

The silent withering of hope, hearts and flowers,
Shock sets in, a paralysis where we are silent, motionless;

All that remains is to find what drifting wreckage
Might remain, to recover anything recoverable,

To pray for the living who receive the sad communication.

       There will follow more news, a further trailing

Of speculation, into the coming days and hours,

While shock devolves toward reluctant, emotionless

Silence, the only proper response to such carnage
As resulted from this unrealized flight plan, reliable
Had it been followed, now only fit for denunciation.

       There will be no end to our flying or sailing,
Into wind or over waves, despite public glowers—
No inquiry can ever reinstitute a confidence erosionless,

No legal proceeding can undo the incalculable damage;
Somehow, we are all responsible, though none will be held liable,

And this will melt into an infamous past, beyond all explanation.

O, Thou, Ruler of the raging oceans,
we acknowledge and bewail
all our shortcomings and pitiable motions;
You cannot redress this travail,

But please accept the tragic remains
of those that were misled and all who perished;
Guard them in the depths of your domains,
knowing that they were, and are, loved and cherished.

Amen.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 16. let sunrise break through fog

Note to Readers: Now that I am nearly half way through, I wanted to say a little something about what this series of posts is all about. “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work, others from my own readings. The intertextual approach Eliot used in his writing could be cryptic, as he was alluding to many other writings, as well as personal experiences; the average person would find annotations helpful, but he did not annotate the work. A few scholars have made attempts to do so; I have worked on my own annotations. While the style of Eliot’s writing was considered “modern,” “post-symbolist”, even “neoclassical,” it must be said that all writing, throughout time, has carried subject, rhythm, tone and trope, forward from the past. Eliot did not invent intertextuality; it can be said that every text is a product of intertextuality. One of the ways that we draw listeners or readers in to whatever new idea (if any) we might have is by offering familiar context from the past, much like making a hat-rack available, on which we can hang something familiar and then introduce something new, or ponder what never changes.

                16.

let sunrise break through fog,
that there be joy in the morning!
yet, even so, even so,

for though the flowers bloom
under beaming majesty,
there is continual cause for wonder.

let me ponder my flight
that fonder I might grow
of this childhood,

for what and for why
did this seed burst forth
into bloom?

let me consider
self as emerging
from some deep interior,

for it must be
that there is every
purpose under the sun,

let me seek mine own,
attempt to outgrow
the stories of my youth,

for it is true
that most being seeks
to find completion in purpose

let me therefore accept
the world and
serve it,

for surely it is all life
that being supports
and, mutually supported, is;

let me therefore give thanks that
being is and teaches continually
through osmotic exchange

for what purpose, then,
if not to fold and enfold,
to mix and mingle?

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 15. Save us! For the waters are rising

                15.

The broadcast news announces:
triumphal cars deployed to the border,
all sabers rattling and threat of sanctions;
echoes of former days,
of charging up an army or two
while the rest of the world wonders
—and all for a spit of land by the seaside.

Save us! For the waters are rising;
we are sinking in the muddy deep,
and under our feet,
there is no firm ground.

Must what was stolen,
time and again, once more
be returned to the hands of thieves,
these soft spoken cult heroes,
offering promises on deceits?

While winds howl
on the raging seas,
one solution is man overboard,
while another will call for peace:
Shut it! one said,
and there was quiet,
while the other fellow got
shut in the belly of the fish;
in the end,
each was a kind of salvation,
though one was more difficult to clean up.

What, then, of this latest
crime over Crimea?

One martyr said,
where the heart longs,
the will cannot fail to choose;
reason, in the end, must justify.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 14. grasping at words

                14.

grasping at words,
gasping at my inability to seize them,
this is the fevered dream from which one awakes
in the middle of any dark night.

meanings, musings and poetry taunt,
they clang in my ears noisily and haunt
the nocturnal halls
in those hours meant to sustain
and refresh.

true music is sensed
beyond the thicket of my confusion,
partially heard, felt in fragments
dropping like leaves from trees that overhang,
but these traces do not form and clarify into song,
at least, not into the song of my salvation. 

the best words are winged chariots;
they rise up into the night sky,
adhering to the planets and the stars;
after a time, they crumble with laughter,
falling gently as dust to earth,
where they walk together,
gathering flowers,
stopping to help the fallen child,
and inform the wisdom of birds.

my ungainly chariots are empty; 

all have been flung into the sea,
where they are swallowed up;
they sink to the depths like stones.

I cry out,
but only a hot wind is heard;
it blows like a curtain around me,
an isolating cloak of despair.

my thoughts manage to form a plea,
echoing through empty pathways,
pooling and circling downward
toward the fathomless drain:

please help me break through the silence that swallows me up!

please help me break through to life!

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 13. Getting off the train

                13.

Getting off the train,
thinking to leave behind the clutter of old ways,
our old, shabby thoughts drift across the platform
and flow up the escalator with us,
flowing amid the general mess
of commingled thoughts and emotions,

—really the wants of the rough and tumble masses—
whose sound has gone out into all lands.

Strive as we might to stay in possession,
sometimes rummaging the lost and found
to reclaim half-baked ideas,
the mobile phone dropped yesterday,
or cans for the recycle,
we miss the small presence,
the unprepossessing gift
that arrives, unasked for,
in the face of the flowering weed
growing out of the blighted cracks
of the forgotten and foreclosed factory;
seeking so much beyond our ken,
we fail to see the ordinary
(still very much noteworthy,
in as much as it is woven into the fabric of our being).

Whether we see it or not,
the weed is, in our time or any other,
and exists to be;
that it purifies the air is beside the point,
but for that we should give thanks.

We struggle forward,
making plans,
rehearsing incoherent speeches,
wrestling with emotions,
but Truth interrupts,
does it not?

Truth is neither of passion or dispassion,
but it constantly crosses our path,
manages to derail all our plans
and frequently sends unwanted messengers,
as if to say:
here I am,
pay attention.

Truth is,
Truth is what happens
when we are making other plans;
time and place cease to matter,
acceptance is all in all.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 12. Beginning again

                12.

Beginning again
(beginning from any start or end;
to restart anew)
begins only after sunrise
and only with the willingness
to rise with the sun
into a fresh and unspoiled world,
where every sense,
      every sound,
            every creature,
is a Word that is holy,
and every face is the face of God,
and all are a danceable music together,
held aloft in the spheres
by that most peculiar Pin
of our portal's hinge,
so that we can experience
swinging freedom and flight,
and also safety, at such great height.

Such beginnings only come upon one suddenly,
and only if you believe in a magic
where seeing is believing,
even when appearances are deceiving.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 11. Up from the dark

                11.

Up from the dark,
each of us from our own depths,
as if hearing the cry, “Sleepers, awake!” 

Up into the waking state,
and perhaps for an hour,
some part awake, while the rest sleeps.

We enter the train from the platform,
find the patient no longer here,
the passengers unsettled
within their myopic world of media
their gazes held in their hands,
rocking forward toward indifferent arrivals.

Little can be expected of such a day,
unless one is awakened by Genius,
tazed by the Security Guard,
or assailed by the Transient Upstart;
on such days, not even coffee will serve
to jumpstart us to a higher awareness of Life.

Though the lamps are lit,
they are eclipsed by the false day
with its mechanical nudgings and dronings,
and repetitions of soulless activitiy;
our eyes are not prepared for sight
under the burning gaze of a truer Light.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 10. Down in the dark

                10.

Down in the dark,
down in the dark,
in the dark we have been.

More than watchmen wait for the dawn;
all of us here await the coming Light.

In the morning of the world,
the everlasting Light breaks over us
the light purifies all rivers and oceans,
the light shakes the desert sands,
the light twists the cedars,
and its fire strips the forests bare.

More than watchmen wait for dawn;
all of us here await the coming Light,
so the darkness shall be dark no more,
and the stillness shall dance,
for the Light shall be felt so deeply,
—for Light shall surely purify!—
that we shall be children in the Light,
and shall be Light while we last,
while Light lasts.

This is intersection of timeless moment;
It is here that our time and all time is redeemed.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 9. We've reached beyond the stars

                 9.

We’ve reached beyond the stars,
landed cameras on mars,
yet, with all our science,
struggle with compliance
with the truth: all people are one.

Space painted a frontier to be won,
but home where union seems impossible,
an idea embedded as discord—implausible,
given this rational knowing:
we are greatest when music together, sewing
knitting, inventing solutions, sowing
seeds and making technology that affirms;
a standard by which we come to terms
with the dignity of every living being
is a dream still deferred to the reality of seeing
humanity far from freedom’s joys,
caught up, instead, with material toys.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 8. Wind howls over the sea like a wraith

                 8.

Wind hovers over the sea like a wraith,
the howl and yell
measure time, and tell
the story of our weak and waning faith,
as it slowly crumbles into ruin.

Smoldering wreckage
we have not found,
loss incalculable by pound,
like another of a bygone age,
hijacked and crashed,
other hearts and hopes dashed;
our lives, those lives and these
traded for political gain,
or with revenge to appease
a movement not for peace,
only for blood-soaked increase
within a culture of death.

We stand at the shore,
praying for an answer,
hoping we are wrong, and more,
waiting for a cure for such cancer
—cannot this corruption finally be consumed
so that corruption itself will cease?
—We presume all are doomed,
but what was it all for?

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 7. Words are a music that should really be just words

                 7.

Words are a music that should really be just words,
quothe the conflicted scribe.

Could words mean so much,
if there were nothing poetical about them?

Words, naked against the silence,
cannot be so transparent,
or what is the point (still or trembling)?

My heart overflows with the songs
I have learned from birds;
they sing to announce their rights—
all tongues must be skilled pens,
each a sword to defend justice and truth,
pointed and crafted, learned and remembered
—as well as to celebrate the communion of sunlit joys.

Along the way and wave,
words are like the intentions we pave—
for what poetry does not its people save?

— and each step we take
is eased by the music we make;
words must intend, when addressed,
to soothe the savage and his aching breast,
to be medicine that smoothes each crease,
to be the incantation announcing peace.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen