Charles

“The Devil is God Hurt.”
― Matthew Edward Hall

“What’s the winter for?
To remember love.

— Theodore Roethke, from “Random Undated Notes,” The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke by Allan Seager. (University of Michigan Press August 15, 1991)”
― Theodore Roethke, Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths

“Lemuel's Blessing"

Let Lemuel bless with the Wolf, which is a dog without a master, but the Lord hears his cries and feeds him in the desert.

-From “Jubilate Agno,” by Christopher Smart.

You that know the way,
Spirit,
I bless your ears, which are like cypresses on a mountain
With their roots in wisdom. Let me approach.
I bless your paws and their twenty nails, which tell their own prayer
And are like dice in command of their own combinations.
Let me not be lost.
I bless your eyes, for which I know no comparison.
Run with me like the horizon, for without you
I am no more than a dog lost and hungry,
Ill-natured, untrustworthy, useless.

My bones together bless you like an orchestra of flutes.
Divert the weapons of the settlements and lead their dogs a dance.
Where a dog is shameless and wears servility In his tail like a banner,
Let me wear the opprobrium of possessed and possessors
As a thick tail properly used
To warm my worst and my best parts. My tail and my laugh

Lead me past the error at the fork of hesitation.
Deliver me

From the ruth of the lair, which clings to me in the morning,
Painful when I move, like a trap;
Even debris has its favorite positions, but they are not yours—

From the ruth of kindness, with its licked hands;
I have sniffed baited fingers and followed
Toward necessities not my own: it would make me
An habitué of back steps, faithful custodian of fat sheep—

From the ruth of prepared comforts, with its
Habitual dishes sporting my name, and its collars and
leashes of vanity—

From the ruth of approval, with its nets, kennels; and taxidermists;
It would use my guts for its own rackets and instruments, to play its own games and music;

Teach me to recognize its platforms, which are constructed like scaffolds;
From the ruth of known paths, which would use my feet, tail, and ears as curios,
My head as a nest for tame ants,
My fate as a warning.

I have hidden at wrong times for wrong reasons.
I have been brought to bay. More than once.
Another time, if I need it,
Create a little wind like a cold finger between my shoulders,
then
Let my nails pour out a torrent of aces like grain from a threshing machine;
Let distance be nothing to me,
Fatigue, weather, habitation, the old bones, finally,
Nothing to me,
All lights but yours nothing to me.
Let the memory of tongues not unnerve me so that I stumble or quake.

But lead me at times beside the still waters;
There when I crouch to drink let me catch a glimpse of your image
Before it is obscured with my own.

Preserve my eyes, which are irreplaceable.
Preserve my heart, veins, bones
Against the slow death building in them like hornets until the place is entirely theirs.
Preserve my tongue and I will bless you again and again.

Let my ignorance and failings
Remain far behind me like tracks made in a wet season,
At the end of which I have vanished,
So that those who track me for their own twisted ends
May be rewarded only with ignorance and failings.
But let me leave my cry stretched out behind me like a road
On which I have followed you.
And sustain me for my time in the desert
On what is essential to me.

W. S. Merwin, New Yorker, December 8, 1962”
― W.S. Merwin, The Moving Target

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. ― Paul the Apostle, 2 Corinthians 4:18. Born Saul of Tarsus (c. 5 AD- c. 64/65 AD) New King James International Version (2011)”
― Paul the Apostle