wednesday wonder: God is today, a poem

God is Today 

God is today. 

He is not yesterday. 

He is not tomorrow.

God is the dawn, wakening earth to life; 

the first morning ever, 

shining with infinite innocence; a revelation 

older than all beginning, younger than youth. 

God is the noon, blinding the eye of the mind 

with the blaze of truth. 

God is the sunset, casting over creation 

a color of glory 

as He withdraws into mysteries of light.

God is today. 

He is not yesterday. 

He is not tomorrow. 

He never is night.

~Jessica Powers, Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit,

in “The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers”

To learn more about Jessica Powers and her poetry, go here! 

beach scenes: Malibu, CA, 2014

He is here... a poem

This Trackless Solitude

Deep in the soul the acres lie of virgin lands, of sacred wood 

where waits the Spirit. Each soul bears 

this trackless solitude. 

The Voice invites, implores in vain 

the fearful and the unaware; 

but she who heeds and enters in 

finds ultimate wisdom there.

The Spirit lights the way for her; 

bramble and brush are pushed apart. 

He lures her into wilderness 

but to rejoice her heart.

Beneath the glistening foliage 

the fruit of love hangs always near, 

the one immortal fruit: He is 

or, tasted: He is here.

Love leads and she surrenders to 

His will. His waylessness of grace. 

She speaks no word save His, nor moves 

until He marks the place.

Hence all her paths are mystery, 

presaging a divine unknown. 

Her only light is in the creed 

that she is not alone.

The soul that wanders, Spirit led, 

becomes, in His transforming shade, 

the secret that she was, in God, 

before the world was made. 

                          ~ Jessica Powers, Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.

a Thursday treat: 2 Jessica Powers poems

a flock of doves came to visit me in my backyard last week

                   DOVES 

A dove in the air, 

A dove in the sea, 

And a dove in your glance 

When you look at me. 

Feather of dusk, Wings in the grain, And a crumpled bird In the wake of pain. 

Everywhere doves With their drifting wings; In a dream, in a song That a poet sings; 

In the touch of death, In the kiss of love, And God Himself As a snow-white dove.

  ~Jessica Powers, in The Lantern Burns

Jessica Powers, Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (1905-1988), was a Discalced Carmelite nun and a member of the Carmel of the Mother of God  (Pewaukee, Wisconsin). She produced 7 volumes of poetry: The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, The House at Rest, The Lantern Burns, The Place of Splendor, Mountain Sparrow and The Little Alphabet (a book of children's poems), as well as a small collection of Christmas poems,  "Journey to Bethlehem."  

I first encountered Powers through her hopeful poem “Repairer of Fences,” in The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, completed shortly before her death. 

THE HOUSE AT REST 

      On a dark night  

     Kindled in love with yearnings – 

     Oh, happy chance! – 

     I went forth unobserved, 

     My house being now at rest. 

                 ~St. John of the Cross  

 

How does one hush one’s house, 

each proud possessive wall, each sighing rafter, 

the rooms made restless with remembered laughter 

or wounding echoes, the permissive doors, 

the stairs that vacillate from up to down, 

windows that bring in color and event 

from countryside or town, 

oppressive ceilings and complaining floors?   

 

The house must first of all accept the night. 

Let it erase the walls and their display, 

impoverish the rooms till they are filled 

with humble silences; let clocks be stilled 

and all the selfish urgencies of day.   

 

Midnight is not the time to greet a guest. 

Caution the doors against both foes and friends, 

and try to make the windows understand 

their unimportance when the daylight ends. 

Persuade the stairs to patience, and denythe passages their aimless to and fro. 

Virtue it is that puts a house at rest. 

How well repaid that tenant is, how blest 

who, when the call is heard, 

is free to take his kindled heart and go.

No. Padre Island, December 2013

Friday treat: God is my repairer of fences

A few years ago, I discovered Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, a Discalced Carmelite nun who lived a faithful life as a member of the Mother of God Carmel in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.

That life-giving commitment is in itself worthy of our thanksgiving and praise. Yet Sister Miriam, born in 1905 as Jessica Powers, was also a prolific poet. Nearly 300 of her 400 poems have been published in periodicals and books, including America Magazine, the sign, and Commonweal.

This is the first of her poems that I fell in love with:

Repairer of Fences

I am alone in the dark, and I am thinking

what darkness would be mine if I could see

the ruin I wrought in every place I wandered

and if I could not be

aware of One who follows after me.

Whom do I love, O God, when I love Thee?

The great Undoer who has torn apart

the walls I built against a human heart,

the Mender who has sewn together the hedges

through which I broke when I went seeking ill,

the Love who follows and forgives me still.

Fumbler and fool that I am, with things around me

and of fragile make like souls, how I am blessed

and to hear behind me footsteps of a Savior!

I sing to the east; I sing to the lighted west:

God is my repairer of fences, turning my paths into rest.

Isaiah 58:12 (Douay)

"Jessica Powers is an artist, painting in words the movements of the heart, the aspirations of the soul, the homelessness of a pilgrim people, the joys and sufferings of the mystic, the song and dance of those in love, the beauties of creation," noted Bishop Robert Morneau in the Introduction of “The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers,” an anthology of her poetry which she approved five weeks before her death in 1988.

Sister Miriam's "Scotch-Irish ancestry, her many years of rural living, her love of St. John of the Cross, her desire to draw people into the presence of God,” wrote Bishop Morneau, “have all radically influenced her poetry and her life"--and that of her readers.

Jessica Powers, Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, served God in the midst of her people--and the song she heard in her heart continues to bless us today.

For a Lover of Nature

Your Valley trails its beauty through your poems,

the kindly woods, the majestic river.

Earth is your god-or goddess, you declare,

mindful of what good time must one day give her

of all you have. Water and rocks and trees

hold primal words born out of genesis.

But love is older than these...

Go here to see the entire poem, "For a Lover of Nature."