Tag: sonnet

Poem: In the Hills of Western Maryland

~ Alex Poulos ~ Leave a comment

When in the wooded lands of fall I tread,
I take my mask down, breathe the dry oak air;
skyward I peer, as Aurora with her red
hands hails these hills of deer, sparrow, and bear.
The forest breath, it strikes against my cheek.
Freed from abstraction I’m thrust into this,
this solemn joy, this province of the meek,
where time dissolves, where space bestows its kiss.
O Mary, here the pine hills bear your name.
Mother, you held their author in your womb
so full of grace: may I become the same,
weighed down with Christ, before I meet the tomb.
O holy Lady, do not spare your power;
pray for us now, and in death’s final hour.

Sunday, November 22, 2020, near Middletown, Maryland.

Poem: Gentleness in Late Summer

~ Alex Poulos ~ Leave a comment

Gentleness– tying one’s shoes in a rainstorm,
the feel of water giving all its rinse,
the dragonflies producing their own form,
the savoring of your sensuous feminine scents.
With gentleness I said “yes” to a child,
a crop that is still many years away–
Our bodies tangled up, so spry and wild,
embracing toil in hope of harvest day.
The meek, you say, the gentle get the land,
“indulge they will in plenitudes of peace.”
A home they find, not crashing in the sand,
but one from worry proffering release.
My Christ, in you I’ve found a fortress strong,
that gentleness for which I deeply long.

August 30, 2020 at Elk Neck State Park.

Late Spring (A Sonnet)

~ Alex Poulos ~ Leave a comment

One spiritual practice I’ve found richly rewarding over the past few years is poetic composition– to try to wrap words around a moment of unveiling. There’s something sacrilegious about putting words to the ineffable, yet I find the practice grounds me to a certain extent; the words help me remember, return me to that moment of insight, beauty, and grace. The sonnet below I composed several weeks ago after a long hike through the Maryland wilderness.

Late Spring

Here, the wet weight of honeysuckle scent,
the shadows dancing on the brook’s brown bank,
the brook’s deliberate gurgling descent,
the poplar tulips flowering its flank,
assert the withering to naught of Spring,
its ceding to empyric Summer’s glow,
th’exhausting days that toil from us wring,
the heaviness that rests on those that grow.
My god this too’s the season of my life,
of limits I am achingly aware.
My soul with cares, with duties now is rife.
They close in on me with a haunting stare.
“My son, beloved, look into my face,
And feel the natural rhythms of my grace.”

Saturday, May 30, 2020. On personal retreat near Waldorf, MD.

The Man Born Blind (John 9:1–17)

~ Alex Poulos ~ Leave a comment

This post was originally written for a Lenten devotional put together by my parish, Church of the Advent, in Washington, DC.

It wasn’t just their question; it was mine.
What caused this wretched curse of wroth divine?
What did I do to be robbed of the light,
to utt’rly disappear from others’ sight?
Why hath my God looked on me with contempt?
With what did he my cursèd parents tempt,
cursèd with me, clearly God’s enemy,
curs’d e’er to ask and ask again, “why me?”
But then Light came, unveiling my deceptions;
with mud he smeared away my preconceptions.
My pain, rejection, O my loss and hurt,
that shame that comes from grov’ling in the dirt,
became the pretext for my greatest boon—
That moment when Light’s eyes did meet my own.

Today’s passage begins with a question, in effect, “Master, was this man born blind because of his own sin, or because of his parents’?” The starting point for my sonnet above was the realization that this question must also have haunted both the blind-man himself and his parents, and that it likely tore their family apart. Instead of finding support from his parents (vv. 18–22), as might be expected, he has been lying down by the side of the road and begging. Even after a dramatic reversal of fortune, his parents have no desire to stick up for their newly healed son (vv. 18–23). We easily imagine how the need to blame would have destroyed this man’s bonds with his parents. He’s faced rejection from his neighbors too. Some of those who have walked by him as he begged, presumably for years, are not even sure that this man is in fact the blind beggar— they had simply learned to look away.

Jesus, however, looks this pain squarely in the eyes. He refuses to allow his disciples, or the man’s neighbors, to employ theology to dehumanize, to disclaim responsibility for a creature, though marred, who was made in God’s image (may Christ confront us when we do the same!). He takes instead this terrible suffering as a pretext for a greater glory— that of sight restored, both of body and of soul. For God is so mighty in his love that even the most terrible suffering can be made, in the light of the cross, to look as though it were God’s original plan, as though God himself had directly caused terrible toil to bring about the reversal. This is not so, and cannot be so, but it is a testament to God’s exquisite care that our sufferings often become the locus of extraordinary blessing. This is the spiritual truth we are bid to embrace during the season of Lent: that when we lose our lives, we find them; that when we take up our crosses, we rise to new life; that when we lean with Christ into our pain, exhaustion, and despair, we might, just might, find Easter joy.