Meditations in Fast Times: 34. What is poetry

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.

                34.

What is poetry, if it does not save people?

Some of us mistook one condition for another:
that cultivation of an ars poetica
was actually cultivation of an ars vita;
in our defense, I speak for us
—we did so in good faith.

And now, we sit by the waters
as the ancients did,
by those waters of Babylon,
weeping, for all is burning.

All we can say in our defense,
‘twas all done in good faith,
but we have been captured,
we have all been captured,
nonetheless.

Is it any wonder that our hopes,
as if they were our children,
have been dashed upon the rocks?

The songs we wrote
were a poor case
of poets wanting an empire.

The wind sings through poplars,
for we are nothing of nothing,
laid low and expecting nothing.

Alone,
the wind carries forward
the memory of our intention,
and the heart.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 33. I was all things to all people

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.

                33.

I was all things to all people,
and the results are worthless.

The wisdom age and experience
reputedly should reveal
are merely self-deceptions,
vain peerings into the darkness
with eyes that are blind,
or rather, eyes never intended for seeing.

This generation preached itself,
offering empty ideas
and false prophets,
selling belief in things,
rather than teaching respect toward bodies;
our reward is a path to the mire.

However badly things have turned out,
we are not forsaken, now or ever,
in the sight of Divine Life
—an agreement can yet be struck;
by way of a humble confession,
a forsaking of guile and craft
for truth and honesty.

This is the way to freedom:
as badly as we have failed,
as poorly as we have behaved,
as ugly as we have made ourselves,
we are yet unfinished works,
and every bit of us
—every cell, every thought—
contains all the beauty of Life Itself,
if we would embrace that notion
as a truth and an inevitability.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 32. The middle

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.

                32.

The middle, I have found.

Here I am, in the middle way;
the twenty-five years of my exploring
not wasted, no, not at all, not ever,
not even when discoveries proved
to be dead ends;
for even dead ends show signs of life.

Here I am, in the middle way,
still l’entre deux guerres,
for that condition seems unchanged
—the barbarians, after all,
are a kind of solution
bullies fall back on
when they have no other reason
to incite, intrude or invade.

Here I am, in the middle way;
the tattered, folding maps
are giving up, their faded lines
were useful and lovingly explored;
such charts are no longer made:
people no longer travel but by turns and
the art of topography is all but forgotten.

Here I am, in the middle way;
from the beginning to each far place,
I met beauty, I met goodness and joy,
and when I returned, here I found the same,
although there was no sameness
to the varieties of expression
—every place has flavorful salt.

Here I am, in the middle way;
this unusual place, difficult to find
because it is overgrown and untended,
seems deserted and lonely,
though birds and other creatures
do make their homes here,
among the low hanging tree branches.

Here I am, in the middle way;
this is possibly the road least traveled,
by my reckoning, though many
say they know how to find it
—interest in being here has dwindled;
polarization seems preferable, somehow,
or at least more socially popular.

The middle, I have found,
and I shall not stop exploring
the intricacies of its beauty,
the subtleties of its forms,
the art by which it cultivates me
—In the scheme of things,
I arrive, in the middle, a beginner.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 31. Night watch is always happening

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.

                31.

Night watch is always happening
in the garden of the soul, where
one always worries that the torch will burn out,
in the strain of that very darkest hour,
before the horizon’s eyelids begin to flutter.

Wondering, wondering,
while restlessly wandering in the dark night,
one constantly wonders about choices,
trying to learn from the uses of choice,
to remember the successes and the failures.

The random thought occurs
that past choices might be woven together
into an enchantment that could conjure or cure,
but the song of the soul gently urges against such folly;
though all time may well be the same,
each moment presents itself differently
to the individual.

Those laws of time that truly exist
lie outside our perception;
these were not carved in stone,
but lovingly touched into living flesh,
softly blown into each wisdom eye,
that the quandary of possibility
might be met flexibly
in each moment of our journey.

No challenge can be answered
with stone tablet thinking;
all answers must be driven
by the informed and intuitive heart.

Waking from the night watch,
of wonder, dreaming and prayer,
is to greet the day of our challenge
with the faith of best intention,
rising with the resolve to act,
in the assurance that our effort
will be met, as befits the need.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 30. There is a time for building

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.

                30.

There is a time for building,
a time for collapse,
a time of reckoning,
a time for remembering,
a time of forgetting,
a time for forgiving
a time of returning;
all these times are the same time,
past, present and future,
all apparent in the blooming eglantine,
all apparent in the salt clinging to each blossom,
all apparent in everything awaiting its due season.

We rise, we fall, we crumble;
Our old wood burns quick, hot
cinders into ash; we return to earth
and the wind carries us, like seeds,
to every corner, every place—
we are the song on the wind
as sunlight fills the empty pool;
neither shadow, nor light,
but we are there, in due season.

We are in the running rivers,
we are in the waving grain,
we are in the slowness of trees,
in the speed of the hummingbird,
we are the cries, smiles, laughter and dance
that turn to mourning and remembrance,
we are silence and sound, which together are music,
we are the songs of sadness or rejoicing—
we are the time and seasons,
and we await our due,
our return.

We are quietness at rest,
if we could be content so to be.

We are the dream,
if we could be content so to be.

The house of mirth and the house of mourning
are one and the same dream;
the clinging salt does not harm the beauty of the rose,
and the rose does not rebuke the embrace of the salty spray—
they are content to be thrown together,
for it is grand to be;
being is the grandest dream of all.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 29. Since we were talking about words

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.

                29.

Since we were talking about words, and words inspired us

    To perfect language and clarify understanding,

    To practice communication with using past and future,

Let me review the epic failure of that enterprise

    That we thought would bring us renown.

We spoke in tongues,
but not with the tongues of angels;
full of and with self,
we sought to be known communicants with the Divine,
rather than in community with other people,
and so our words fell flat,
spiraling downward into obscurity,
so lacking they were in music
or meaning

—if the trumpet sounds uncertainly,
how shall we understand the signal?

If we are to spread love,
it must be into the field of our life and action,
even if we never know the result of our labor.

Love of place cannot rank above love of people;
people are the servants of creation;
they are all the gardeners of Eden,
just as you are—this what memory taught me:

To be free, the self must be regularly emptied,

a sign of giving and receiving in equal measure;
emptiness is the sign of a life well spent,
regardless of any past or future claims.


Of all that I ever knew about language,
of all the words and ways,
I’d rather have just five words
that I could speak with compassion and love,
that I could be compassion and love,
that I could truly be,
and be so for everyone.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 28. I'm not eager to repeat

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.

                28.

I’m not eager to repeat
those thoughts and acts I now regret;
they’ve been done, and now are gone,
—let it go.

Last season’s fruit has all been et,
it served the role it’s nature met;
it’s all done, and now is gone,
—let it go.

Let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go;
Help us rise up to new day, let it go.

From wrong to wrong, and then again,
we seek to find a better way;
lead us to an answer,
—let us go.

Come, labor on; when each soul prays
with heart, at break of day,
toward Your presence in the light
—help us go.

Help us go, help us go, help us go, help us go;
Help us rise up to Your light, help us go.

And when I leave my soul
out on the pure sands of some distant shore,
do not mourn my passing
—let me go.

Though beyond awareness,

I truly hope my purpose has been met;
Sing me to the heav’nly gate
—let me go.

Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go,
Help me rise up to New Day, let me go.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen