Considering Joseph

Before Christmas 2019 fades too far back in the rearview mirror, I’d like to focus on a carol I heard this year, I am pretty sure for the first time.  Hard to imagine an old Christmas carol I haven’t heard with radio stations playing seasonal music non-stop from Halloween on, but so it appears.  I trust this one, indeed, is an old song because the version I downloaded at iTunes was by Peter, Paul & Mary, and that fact alone dates the piece. 

‘The Cherry-Tree Carol’ came my way a couple Saturdays ago on the newest edition of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion.  I don’t think this Christmas special from New York City was broadcast on public radio, but the show was ever so enjoyable on YouTube.  garrisonkeillor.com sent along an email reminder and tune in I did.  It was good to hear Garrison & the gang again. 

Halfway through the show as his duet partner came onto the stage, Garrison introduced ‘The Cherry-Tree Carol’ as a not-so-famous Christmas song, in part he thought because it portrayed Joseph as Mary’s not-so-enthralled-about-the-baby fiancé.  

Which got me to thinking immediately about what that experience would have been like for Joseph.  I can remember hearing from my own intended long ago that we were with child pre-wedding and I know the turmoil it caused both of us and our families.  

Gospel narrative goes that when Joseph got word of the pregnancy, he was going to gracefully disassociate from Mary and set her on her own path toward motherhood.  But an angel comes to calm him and let him know how high the stakes are and that Joseph, himself, is called to care for and parent the boy, explained to him by the angel as being none other than the Son of God.   

I can not imagine finding that little nugget of world history on my plate at a time when I was merely trying to figure out how my life had just been changed forever because a baby was now part of it.  True, I knew all about the why of our blessed event.  Joseph was freaking ambushed.   

So I turned up the volume, paid good attention to ‘The Cherry-Tree Carol,’ then quickly went looking online for lyrics to clarify the narrative.  Song starts with establishing Joseph as an old dude, yet he was marrying the ‘Virgin Mary, the Queen of Galilee.’  Goodness.  No pressure there. 

Second verse sees Joseph and Mary trekking to Bethlehem, donkey-style, for the census.  Along the way the hungry couple passes through a cherry orchard where Mary lays a simple truth on the ‘so meek and so mild man’:

‘Joseph, gather me some cherries for I am with child.’  Then, just in case he didn’t hear her truth correctly, she repeats, ‘Joseph, gather me some cherries for I am with child.’

Excuse me?  Did you say With child?  Well, I guess ‘Joseph flew in anger / In anger he flew.’  Was this the first he knew?  Seems so.  He then pops off and bellows, ‘Let the father of the baby gather cherries for thee.’  And just in case Mary didn’t get his drift, he repeats ‘Let the father of the baby gather cherries for thee.’

Seems like a standoff, eh?  Not so much.  The baby Jesus then speaks up in the womb telling the cherry trees to bend down so his Mother can gather their fruit.  And, of course, they do, honoring the wish of the Son of God, for pete’s sake.  Rather pleased with that development, Mary sings out, ‘Oh, look thou Joseph, I have cherries by command.’  She, of course, repeats it. 

No verse follows that tells of the resolution of this couple's travel dilemma.  All we know for sure is that Joseph is an old man who has just learned his trophy wife, a young so-called virgin, is going to have a baby.  Angel hasn’t made his/her appearance yet to plead Heaven’s case.  

Which brings this story to another very interesting and ever so seminal place: Who, then, was Jesus’ birth father?  Hundreds of years after the event the Church standardized teachings with the Holy Spirit as impregnator bit which affirmed the Gospel stories that had already been written.  

But if a curious person doubted that who-made-the-baby story, what truth is left?  Who provided the male set of chromosomes that gestated into Jesus, the Son of God?  Joseph?  If not, who?  Kinda’ makes ya’ wonder, doesn’t it?  Too bad the carpenter Joseph, his wife, or even their son never wrote a memoir to clear all this up.  Ah, mythology…

I must say I am pleased with having ‘The Cherry-Tree Carol’ find me this Christmas.  Brings more of the humanity of the story into focus.  Makes it clear, too, that the Savior of the World — shoot, maybe even the whole damn Universe — was conceived out of wedlock.  

It is fun to consider that my lovely Jennifer and the church’s very own Jesus have that essential personal experience in common.  :-)

Today’s elder idea:   ‘The Cherry-Tree Carol’

Wikipedia reports ‘The Cherry-Tree Carol’ probably dates back to the 15th Century and comes in a few different versions, some that provide narrative beyond the orchard event.

When Joseph was an old man

An old man was he

He married Virgin Mary, the Queen of Galilee

He married Virgin Mary, the Queen of Galilee

Joseph and Mary walked through an orchard green

There were cherries and berries

As thick as might be seen

There were cherries and berries

As thick as might be seen

Mary said to Joseph

So meek and so mild

Joseph, gather me some cherries for I am with child

Joseph, gather me some cherries for I am with child

Then Joseph flew in anger

In anger flew he

Let the father of the baby gather cherries for thee

Let the father of the baby gather cherries for thee

Then up spoke baby Jesus from in Mary's womb

“Bend down the tallest branches

That my mother might have some

Bend down the tallest branches

That my mother might have some”

And bend down the tallest branches

It touched Mary's hand

Cried she 

Oh, look thou Joseph I have cherries by command

Oh, look thou Joseph I have cherries by command

When Joseph was an old man

An old man was he

He married Virgin Mary, the Queen of Galilee

He married Virgin Mary, the Queen of Galilee

Images of Joseph & family ripped from an internet search.

Adios, Phyllis

Yes, it has indeed been a long time since I last posted an entry here.  I trust your life has moved in a variety of ways as mine has in that period.  

The reason for today’s entry is to memorialize a special friend, Phyllis Kittel, who left this plane of existence the first week of December this year.  

I first met Phyllis as Sister Mary Harold, C.PP.S., my geometry teacher at Carroll High School in 1965.  As a guy with a non-math brain, Sister Mary Harold succeeded where few other teachers had.  When all was said and done, I figured it was the visual aspect of geometry that helped me understand basic concepts, but Phyllis’s classroom management helped all of us guys in that class laugh from time to time.  I can remember her asking the class a question whose answer was something like ‘coordinates,’ but Steve Haller, the currently duly-elected Greene County prosecutor, raised his hand and answered ‘contraceptives.’  The guys erupted in laughter while I assume Sister’s face turned bright red.  

Aside from geometry, though, I really got to know Phyllis because she served as staff advisor for a group of us sophomores participating in Backyard Peace Corps, an after-school club focused on social justice.  Organizationally, the club included many kids from all grades, but we were broken out in smaller groups for efficiency.  Faculty must have concluded smaller groups had a better chance of listening to each other and maybe even getting something done.  

Turned out Sister Mary Harold was mentor for my small group while I was chosen as student group leader, which meant I had the good fortune of sitting to chat with her many afternoons that year after school.  My best Backyard Peace Corps memory from that year was some of us getting bussed to Ruskin Elementary School in Dayton once of week to tutor some needy kids.  Good gig.

Spring of sophomore year brought big changes, however.  I was disappointed to learn from Sister that she was relocating to Chicago where the Precious Blood order assigned her to work on a graduate degree in mathematics.  The biggest part of my disappointment was the loss of after school visits with her.  As consolation, I broke out my fountain pen from time to time and jotted out a note and mailed it to the Windy City.  Late junior year Sister advised she would be back in Dayton for the summer, so of course I lined up a ride from my parents to drop me off at the house in Oakwood where Sister and some of her colleagues were living.  It was good to see her if just to say ‘hi.’ 

But that was the end of things for a long time thereafter.  In correspondence that next school year, Sister wrote telling me she was leaving the order and would be re-taking her ‘maiden’ name.  The late 1960s was a time when many priests, brothers, and sisters were leaving religious life, so that didn’t surprise me.  She wrote that she planned to stay on in Chicago to teach somewhere.  And so, life moved on for us both and it wasn’t long before our correspondence ceased.  

Jump to fall 2015.  Early evening 2 September 2015, to be exact.  I was sitting at my Mac sorting & trashing most of my email, as we all do, when I saw a very unexpected one from Phyllis Kittel.  Remembering that moment now brings me to tears.  Email preserved: 

Hi Tom,

Our old sister friend in Detroit tells me this is your email address and asked if I remember you.  Of course I do, though I probably wouldn't recognize you on the street.  I have not been in touch with any former Carroll students.  Though I am in touch with several students from after I left the convent.  I would love to pick up where we left off.  Some calculus maybe!  ;-) 

If you would like to resume a friendship from our student/teacher relationship of 60 years ago, that would just be great.  I'm on facebook too--Phyllis Kittel (Sister Mary Harold).  Can we begin with your life story since Kathy tells me you are a writer and poet?

Warmly,

Phyllis

PS: I wrote a book too!  About the convent after Vatican II.

Needless to say, my answer was a resounding ‘YES!’  Just three hours later I sent back a carefully constructed and monumentally long bio of my life since high school. 

Regular emails to and from Phyllis happened every day.  I was especially excited to hear she and her husband lived in southern Colorado, just a little over an hour up the road from where Cindy & I have had some wonderful summer weeks at the Nada Hermitage in Crestone.  I would forward Phyllis comic strip clippings, a poem now and then, along with links to interesting news articles, some about sisters who had left their order to do good work.  

I was eager to get a copy of Phyllis’s book, Staying in the Fire: A Sisterhood Responds to Vatican II, in which she analyzes the dynamic of those sisters, unlike herself, who stayed in the ‘convent’ when so many women left.  I never quite got through reading it back then.  It comforts me to think that now when I pick up Staying in the Fire I’ll be hearing Phyllis’s voice as I read her words.

As it turned out, just months after Phyllis found me, her husband, John Light, took ill.  I was off in Kentucky working on my book when I received the email that John had died in a Denver hospital.  I knew right away that I would be flying out to Colorado to see Phyllis, finally after all those years.  ‘Just tell me when,’ I wrote.  I flew that following April.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Phyllis blessed me with a lovely relationship like no other.  As I wrote in a poem the day after I heard of her passing, she provided me a verbal outlet, though in writing, that I recognize now as a gift given me by my mother.  Too many friends I send emails to have little or nothing to say in return, and it hurts.  Phyllis, however, shared so much of herself at a terribly poignant time in her life that I recognized my love for her was precious and unique.  Heartfelt communication. 

That communication with Phyllis is particularly appropriate here, I think, because it was when she came back into my life four years ago that the frequency of these Back Porch blog entries diminished.  Why?  It is true that I lost some verve for the regular postings, in part because, again, I received little if anything back from readers.  

But most important, I found emailing Phyllis as often as I did satisfied some heartfelt communication need that lurks deep within my being.  For that I will be forever grateful.  

Rest well, Phyllis.  Know that you are loved.  :-)

Today’s elder idea:   "First, thank you for letting me be one of the first readers of Nature’s People.  It has been enjoyable and rewarding.  I am tempted to say that your work is brilliant....  I enjoyed thoroughly the island itself, the Todd's, and the others who made it happen.  It's a great story."  

Above:  Encouragement from Phyllis after reading the first draft of my book, Nature's People: The Hog Island story from Mabel Loomis Todd to Audubon.

Images:  Top:  Sister Mary Harold with some of her Backyard Peace Corps crew working in a food bank.  I'm the one reaching into the can.  

Bottom:  Taken just two months ago at Phyllis's house in Nathrop CO.  2 October 2019

Legacy

Just because I haven’t posted a blog entry for a long, long time doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy.  I have been, but in various ways.  I must admit, most of my writing has been mostly emails, but there has been much else accomplished as well.  Enough, in fact, to bring the idea of personal legacy to mind. 

As a retired public school teacher, I trust one element of my legacy on this plane of existence has been the students I have impacted in one way or another.  There is one kid who wished me un-well on Facebook, but most of the former students I’ve heard from are in the midst of raising families and feeling pretty good about being in touch with an ‘old teacher.’  I do enjoy seeing photos of their kids and reports on job successes and vacation expeditions.  I haven’t done the math, but many of my Facebook friends are, in fact, former students.  I’ve had lunch with a few of ‘em in the last few years, too.  It is good to hear how they are getting along. 

Aside from the human contact, though, a couple very dynamic things are coming together at the moment that brings the idea of personal legacy to mind.  You know:  what products of my existence may or will live on in their own rite long after I’m gone?    

First thing I would think about, as you might guess, is some of my writing.  I am pleased to report my book has reached the milestone of ‘completed first draft.’  Such is an accomplishment, for sure, having borne fruit over the last five winters.  

Initial work on Nature’s People: The Hog Island story from Mabel Loomis Todd to Audubon began back in the early 1980s when I was completing my humanities masters at Wright State.  The Emily Dickinson graduate workshop with Jim Hughes got me started, with the MHum culminating with a long paper and a slide show about that first trek to Emily’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts, closely followed by two weeks at the Audubon Ecology Camp in Maine on Hog Island.  

By the time I retired in 2002, I was aware that basically nobody would ever read my humanities project filed amid all the graduate projects in the Paul Laurence Dunbar Library at WSU.  I had been thinking about it for a while, but upon being on island that summer for a Friends of Hog Island annual meeting, I stood in front of that cohort of Nature lovers and committed to writing a book that expanded on the original and would be a good history of Hog Island, which, by the way, has never been written.  I thought way back then that my book should be dedicated to Bart & Ginny Cadbury, early island stalwarts and FOHI founders.  Material gathering started right away, but actual text didn’t start to form until winter 2014.  Five years and a whole bunch of interviews later, a first draft exists.  

While the book is moving along at it’s own pace, the rector at our church, Rev. John Paddock, hooked me up into facilitating a construction project at venerable old Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Dayton.  

Back in the 1960s when the Great Lady of First Street, the parish’s affectionate name for our current building, received it’s first real upgrade since it opened in 1870, a lovely little chapel was added to the building’s footprint.  It became known as The Reconciliation Chapel in honor of our parish’s affiliation with groups in the United Kingdom and Germany who hoped to heal wounds caused in war.  

Unfortunately for our chapel, walls were engineered in error somehow and when it was discovered the wall facing First Street was in danger of coming down, the painful decision was made to raze the cozy little structure.  

The plan was to find some meaningful public use for this newly open space.  One thought was to install a canopy over a paver floor to create an outdoor sacred space.  Another thought was to install art depicting a variety of believers at the Last Supper.  The best usable idea that coalesced over time was to install a meditative labyrinth.  

And so over the last fifteen months I have facilitated what we like to think of ourselves as The Labyrinth Guild.  We started by inviting John Ridder of Paxworks, an experienced labyrinth designer and installer from Indianapolis, to talk with us about how to proceed.  We started with asking a parishioner, Pete Price, who was also owner Stillwater Builders at the time, what our project would take.  With Pete’s help, a construction summary was assembled and distributed to whichever contractor wanted to make a bid. 

We hoped to generate at least three bids, and when all was said and done six months or so later, that’s what we got.  The bid was awarded to Castor Construction while a separate bid for a paver walkway given to Groundskeeper Landscaping Group.  

As I write this, paver orders/labyrinth construction donations have been coming in for the last few weeks and if all goes well, concrete will be poured yet this week.  John Ridder is confident he can have our ‘eagle crest’ pattern etched into the concrete and stained this fall.  We’re thinking a grand opening next spring. 

I realize my blog entries have started to sound like an old guy reflecting on life.  Well, I suppose it is.  This next weekend I participate in Carroll High School class of 1968’s fifty year reunion.  Trust me, I’ve always thought folks who celebrate fifty years out of high school were old fogies.  Turns out most of us in the class turn 70 in two years.  I’ll let you decide what a fogey is.  :-) 

But when The Reconciliation Labyrinth is finished and open for our parish and friends to use, and Nature’s People makes it through the inevitable gauntlet it faces, I will have two concrete contributions that should go on ‘giving’ in my stead for some time to come.  

And that feels both humbling and damn fine. 

Today’s elder idea:   ‘All in God’s time.’ 

John Ridder

Paxworks

An American rebel

Back in the early 1980s, I had been teaching junior high English for a decade when I finally got started working on my master’s degree.  I must admit, I look back on that time as some of my most fertile years.  I was in my 30s with a couple of cute little girls at home and a wife who was finishing her undergrad work.  We were buying a house, drove a pretty decent car, and were living the American dream.  Life was good.  

By spring 1982, I had fallen in love with Emily Dickinson and was taking a second course with my Wright State guru, Jim Hughes, who this time around was teaching a graduate workshop focusing on rebellion as a hallmark of American character.  We talked about lots of folks from Walt Whitman to James Dean, all very different American rebels, but individuals worthy of study.  

One of our assignments was to interview a contemporary American rebel, as far as I could figure, then create a one page handout to share with the class.  A quandary, indeed.  Who did I know that qualified as a rebel?  

Thinking it over these days, I don’t recall knowing many professed gay individuals back then.  One gentleman I knew well at Rike’s, where I worked part time, told the story of losing his teaching job because a colleague of his found out about him being homosexual, reported him to the high school principal, and after a brief call to the office, was told to pack up his gear that day and remove himself from the premises.  No hearing.  No due process.  Just out because he was working with kids and had admitted to being gay.  

It became clear to me that ‘coming out of the closet’ was a dangerous life changer.  Which got me to thinking that, perhaps, men and women who admitted a homosexual identity in a culture that denigrated such practice were revolutionaries.  Which lead me to consider a neighbor of mine as my American rebel.  

I met Bill Coulter, oddly enough, at the junior high school where I taught.  As advisor to the photo club, I had agreed to assist helping with the yearbook since the kids could print black & white pics in the darkroom and get ‘em published in the yearbook.  Good opportunity for them to find their work in print.  Turned out Bill was not just the Josten’s yearbook representative, but a neighbor of mine who lived just two blocks away.  We ended up socializing some, and our wives enjoyed each other’s company, so all was good.  

But then the day came when Bill announced he was gay.  His wife was stunned, as you might imagine, and came over one day to help Chris and me with some painting.  What we got that day was a cathartic soul cleanse of disbelief and betrayal.  Shortly thereafter, she moved back home to Akron and we never heard from her again. 

Bill stayed in Dayton for a time.  I remember sitting with him in his living room talking about these new developments.  I remember best his challenge for me to come up with ten of the most beautiful people I could think of that I could generate a healthy sexual fantasy about.  He assumed some of my ten would be male.  I didn’t see it that way, because all of my ten were women.  Still, the exercise got me to thinking.  

Some time later Bill went to work for the Dayton Daily News as a writer.  Because of him, I was asked to join the newspaper photo team as a stringer to help record the newspaper’s annual River Run event.  Some time after that he pulled up stakes in Dayton for Miami, Florida, where he intended to really get his writing career into gear.  Not long after we lost touch.  

But it was while Bill was working for the DDN that the American rebel assignment came up.  The one pager I created for class resurfaced this week as I was clearing clutter — and boxes of old books — out of my office here at home.  Thinking about a gay friend as a ‘rebel’ strikes me as odd today, but it got me to thinking about the pre-AIDS 1980s and how much as changed since then.  

For what it’s worth, here is bit of time capsule from a more innocent time.  

***

Interview with an American rebel

March 1982

It occurs to me that rebellion is an intensely personal expression.  Though much rebellion we’ve talked about this quarter emanated from national issues and social phenomenon, the ultimate expression of the rebel is personal. 

Bill has been a friend of mine for the last couple of years.  He drifted into my life and has since drifted out again, though I think of him often.  His expressions of rebellion made me question myself more critically.  The whole relationship has been somewhat mysterious to me, but I thank him for his influence. 

Before I met him, Bill set out to do what was best for himself.  Like Robert Frost, he tried to unite his ‘avocation and vocation / As my two eyes make one in sight.’  He began by leaving his nest in Akron to take a position here that forced him out of his academic womb.  He sold yearbooks. 

He’s still flying.  Today, that flight has led him to Miami, Florida.  On his journey he has discovered that he must write.  And that he is gay.  My questions come from my wanting to understand his ‘coming out,’ both as a writer and as a homosexual.  

Q. How do you react now to the changes in lifestyle the you had to deal with a few years ago? 

A. With relief.  I’m utterly relieved that it’s over.  When I look back now, I see a kind of depthless overcast, clouding over the good times and the bad.  Little specific remains.  Emotionally, what I recall is an unrelenting loneliness, a loneliness I couldn't even understand at the time but which, nevertheless, pervaded everything I did and thought and felt. 

Q. Do you classify yourself as a ‘rebel’ regarding your sexuality? 

A. That’s a relative term.  I suppose within the world I knew several years ago, yes, I was kind of a rebel….  I was a rebel, I imagine — not because I was gay, but because I admitted it. 

Q. Do you classify yourself as a ‘rebel’ regarding your work and lifestyle?  

A. Again, it’s relative.  Because I write, some people believe I’m quite extraordinary, bucking convention, etc., etc.  Because I am gay and live with another man, some people might call me a rebel.  Still, I know other writers who seem more rebellious than I.  The only thing that I would say might be rebellious about my attitude toward things is that I believe one must be and do what one feels is right for oneself, not what one sees everybody else being and doing.  I do not do things because they are rebellious; rather, because I have to. 

Q. A lot of changes accompanied your ‘coming out.’  How related were they?  

A. Sexuality involves more than what you do in bed.  It involves a sensibility — a way of experiencing life and thinking about things.  This is true for heterosexuals as much as for homosexuals.  But my particular decision to leave a steady job, for example, and write for a living is not a characteristic homosexual act.  Rather, it was my act, part of me, part of the me I had never acknowledged yet yearned to be.  Once I faced up to being gay, acknowledged it to my wife and my family and went through the divorce, being me the rest of the way was easy.  

Q. How do you feel about your courage? 

A. Ironically, it occurred to me that I was a coward — because I had never confronted these issues before.  But there was courage, lots of it….  No one else has to die with my conscience.  And like many bitter old men and women I’ve met, had I failed to live my life as I saw fit, I would have gone through life regretting rather than living.  

Today’s elder idea:   ‘When I was 14, I came very close to becoming a gay teen “statistic,” but I then turned to music, my piano, my loved ones, and discovered that it does, in fact, get better.’

Blake McIver Ewing

from Kentucky

So much water has passed under the bridge since my last blog entry.  I hope you haven’t missed The Back Porch too much.  Truth is, I have found other audiences, mostly in person-to-person emails.  Don’t know if that’s a natural progression, but it has been for me. 

I have been at Lake Cumberland, near Monticello, Kentucky since early January working on the last chapters of Nature’s People: The Hog Island story from Mabel Loomis Todd to Audubon.  2017 should be a big year in getting Nature’s People in front of other Nature’s People.  

***

I am a real fan of Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac podcast poetry postings.  I must say I don’t pay much attention to the rest of the almanac, but I read the poem out loud to myself every day.  Many days I find the verse appropriate for forwarding to a friend or family member I think the poem might speak to.  Perhaps you have been target for one or more of them.  

The first poem below ran on the podcast one day last week and drew my attention because it was about a bird stuck inside a church.  Two weeks ago on a still-dark rainy morning here, I opened the door to the deck to check the weather — and a wren flew right inside the house.  I felt panicked immediately as I quickly shut bedroom doors and opened every outside door I could.  I so hoped the little critter wouldn’t do something horrible like fly into a window full speed.  

I armed myself with the only broom in the house and proceeded to herd the wren back into a more natural space.  It took maybe five minutes, but the sweet little singer finally left by the same door she came in.  She sat on the deck railing for a few minutes, cocking her head, perhaps wondering what the heck that was all about.  

I was glad to get her back outside, and at the same time felt blessed by her unexpected visit.  A buddy did some research for me and found that wrens in our lives encourage us to believe in ourselves and sing strong. I have been grateful for the visit ever since I closed the door with Miss Carolina safely back out in the rain.   

And then there is that other ‘bird in a church’ poem by Pattiann Rogers that I like so much. It is because of poems like ‘For the wren trapped in a cathedral’ that I became an authentic Pattiann fan.  Got to talk to her briefly in Denver once.  I find her work inspirational.   

Neither poem appears here with any kind of permission from the publisher.  I hope I’m not in violation of any copyrights, it’s just that I wanted to share their work with you.  

Think of this as a little pre-Lent meditation.  

***

Holy Ghost 

by June Robertson Beisch 

The congregation sang off key.

The priest was rambling.

The paint was peeling in the Sacristy.

A wayward pigeon, trapped in the church,

flew wildly around for a while and then

flew toward a stained glass window,

but it didn’t look like reality.

The ushers yawned, the dollar bills

drifted lazily out of the collection baskets

and a child in the front row began to cry.

Suddenly, the pigeon flew down low,

swooping over the heads of the faithful

like the Holy Ghost descending at Pentecost

Everyone took it to be a sign,

Everyone wants so badly to believe.

You can survive anything if you know

that someone is looking out for you,

but the sky outside the stained glass window,

doesn’t it look like home ?

from Fatherless Women

(Cape Cod Literary Press  2004) 

For the Wren Trapped in a Cathedral   

by Pattiann Rogers

She can never remember how she entered--

What door, what invisible gate, what mistaken 

Passage.  But in this place every day, 

The day shines as a muted mosaic of impenetrable 

Colors, and during the black moonless nights, 

Every flickering star lifts smoke, drips wax. 

She flies, back and forth through the nave, small, 

Bewildered among the forest of branchless trees, 

Their straight stone trunks disappearing majestically

Into the high arches of the seasonless stone sky. 

No weather here, except the predictable weather 

Of chant and procession; no storm, except the storm 

Of the watchdogs let loose inside at night. 

Now when she perches on the bishop’s throne 

Her song naturally imitates the pattern 

Of frills and flutes found in the carvings there, 

The hanging fruit, profuse foliage, ripened 

Curves.  Her trills have adapted themselves 

To fit perfectly the detailed abundance 

Of that wooden Paradise. 

And she has come to believe in gods, swerving close 

To the brightness of the apse, attempting to match 

Her spread wings, her attitude, to that of the shining 

Dove caught there in poised flight above the Ark. 

Near the window of the upper chapel, she imagines 

She is that other bird, emanating golden rays 

To the Christ in the river below. 

Resting on a colonnade opposite the south wall

Of stained glass, she watches how the lines 

Of her wings become scarlet and purple 

With Mary’s Grief.  And when she flies the entire 

Length of the side aisle, she passes 

Through the brown-orange swath of light 

From the Journey into Egypt, the green and azure 

Of the Miracle of the Five Thousand Fed. 

Occasionally she finds that particular moment 

And place where she is magnificently transformed, 

The dull brown of her breast becoming violet

And magenta with the Adoration of the Magi. 

What is it that happens to her body, to bone 

And feather and eye, when, on some dark evenings, 

She actually sees herself covered, bathed, suffused

In the red blood of the Crucifixion?

Among the statues at night, she finds it a peace, 

A serenity, to pause, to murmur in sleep

Next to the ear of a saint, to waken 

Nested on the outstretched hand

Of the Savior’s unchanging blessing. 

Certainly she dreams often of escape, of reversing 

That process by which she came to be here, leaving 

As an ordinary emissary carrying her own story, 

Sacred news from the reality of artifice, 

Out into the brilliant white mystery

Of the truthful world. 

from Firekeeper:  New and Selected Poems

(Milkweed  1994)

***

images:  Norwich Cathedral, Norwich, East Anglia, U.K.

Tom Schaefer / fall 2013