A Carole of Poets: Advent 2021

“The Birds Can Do Nothing But Sing” /
A SECTION POETRY READING

On December 18, 2021, the Section for the Literary Arts and Humanities of the School for Spiritual Science in North America met by Zoom for a Poetry Night. This was our fourth Poetry Night of the year.

We are fortunate that poets and creative writers have become active in our Section, especially so since our Section was founded by a creative writer appointed directly by Rudolf Steiner. (Hint, hint: his initials are AS.)

Our evening started with a remembrance of poet Robert Bly. As noted in previous meeting summaries and posts, several of our Section members knew or worked with Robert Bly. So, instead of reading the customary verse by Rudolf Steiner to begin and end the meeting, I read a poem by the poet Robert Bly: Bach’s B Minor Mass. This poem can be found at the Poetry Foundation website.

As we enter the year 2022, watch for more Salons, Poetry Nights, Dramatic Readings, and Artistic Events, in addition to our ongoing scholarly discussions of matters literary and humanistic as we build toward the anniversary years 2023 and 2024.

For those who missed our Poetry Night on December 18, here is a sampling of the original poetry contributed by the poets. I only included the original poetry; I did not include translations or poems by “canonical” poets that were shared by the meeting members who read the verse of favorite poets. These favorite poets included Solovyov, Kipling, Hafez, Wang Wei, and P’ei Ti.

All original poems are ©2021 by the signed poet.

Poems by Nicholas Morrow

THE DROP

When does a drop become a pool or puddle,
and when it does, does it still feel itself a drop,
a sphere among spheres, round and full,
and does it remember its journey through earth, air, mist, and rain,
or raging river, catapulting, spinning, tumbling
upon and around ancient moss covered stones,
laughing and singing in a chorus from source to sea,
or with eddies as interludes observing the flow,
or still and silent upon a windless lake,
mirroring mountains and trees that pierce a deep blue sky
and starry nights of sweet surrender as one escapes the fold,
leaving a fiery wake and disappearing with reverie that follows,
and the drop, knowing its journey is the same,
dispersing, becoming vapor, mist, and morning dew,
a drop once more on a green leaf in spring,
absorbed, consumed into chlorophyll and blood,
pulsing and keeping time with purpose and intention,
sensing life’s ecstatic moments, contemplating itself
and lit up with inspiration, theory, and sublime poetry,
romance with destiny’s many moods
until it is set free, willing to embrace without condition its fate,
trusting, anticipating its return when upon the scorching desert sands
annihilation comes and takes it away into the void and midnight hour,
separated from substance and form in timeless space,
until the word resounds calling her home
with angelic beings gathered round uniting her infinitesimal parts,
divine alchemy crafting life with electromagnetic pulse,
time and rhythm returning refreshed and new,
gathering, condensing into a sphere of crystal essence,
innocent, a child drop adorned with awe and wonder,
light, sound, wind and warmth, and somewhere a human voice calling,
bread, wine, and the holy sacrament of sacrifice and rebirth,
the etheric Christ and Sophia heart in a drop conscious of its sacred self,
the one and all?

___

INVOCATION

Beloved
it has been a long time since I invoked Your presence,
using your authentic name,
acknowledging You as the Beloved that You are,
for all of us, Your children and lovers learning how to love,
developing our capacities for being human,
for what is the difference between the lover and the human being
when it gets down to flesh and bone,
for that is what we are, forged from the elements,
endowed with life that you breathed into us
and soul that you conjured from the spheres
and the silver cord that connects us
and binds us in myriad geometries through space and time.

Beloved,
I know that You can hear me so do not pretend to be silent.
This is an invocation, clumsy as it may be,
and although we have not mastered love,
it is the only alchemy that can turn this calamity around
and get us back on course with time to spare along the way
to enjoy and celebrate the journey,
and although You say that You love us
and these times are only birth pangs and cleansing
for the glory that lies ahead,
I pray for signs that this is true
and call for interludes so we may catch our breath
to gather courage and strength for the final battle
that darkens the horizon and sunrise that may never come.

Beloved,
we know how our creations can return to haunt us
and wonder if it is the same with You
and if karma holds true for angelic realms as it does for humanity,
clearly out of control,
for the adversaries have forgotten their task
and threaten to control and enslave us,
including You, Beloved,
so I stir the cauldron and add the potion to transmute hate into love,
selfless love, without agenda or condition,
into joy without fear of deception or betrayal,
wonder ever renewed without boredom or dissection,
grace with appreciation and recognition,
and all that has been conjured out of darkness
that does not beget light,
or light that does not illuminate darkness,
return to from whence they came,
and to release demons from their tasks
for they must be weary of the putrid, stagnant,
festering realms that surround them,
and last of all, cast jealousy into the abyss,
for angels and gods, man and woman
have their roles, natures, and gifts,
Beloved or Lover endowed with Love,
each within the other, the same,
for in the beginning three were conceived,
Beloved, Lover, and Love,
each the other creating,
and alone, incomplete,
nothing, not even presence, consciousness, or desire would exist,
only loneliness that disturbed the ominous void,
that long, long ago ceased.

Poems by Daniel Davis

“…may the christmas morning make us happy to be thy children”
— Robert Louis Stevenson

a child’s garden inversion

morn will come, mom. will the angels bring santa first?
so busy in their choirs, carols they sing well versed—
angels their choirs on high, carols so well rehearsed—

angels, mom, can’t the ox bear the boy to his birth:
ox mind the child—
ox his head already lower’d—
ox shoulder the bow—
ox turn the wheel:

know the weary way he would wind to a stable—

the weary way from the garden’s wrong morn will right—
he whose voice only lows wordless he bring the lord..

know the weary way of earth he does—
know the rut from garden to stable—
(he be allowed such saving labor)
know only earth not heaven’s glory.

angels’ morn better spent: that child not want the worst:
mom, morn will come—won’t the angels bring santa first?

(the garden’s wrong morn will right,
the ox to the stable bear—
low his way this earth we share).

2021 Year of the ox

___

christmas lights

outside where live trees blow
in the dark and grow
wet down by rain

christmas lights glow
from across the room
and out the window
into the dark

window on window
on the glass door
to the outside

across the room
to that window
the lights stop
at but go

red lights
green or
blue gold
yellow wait
the lights go

out to night
in the window
in the window

back to the glass door
out to the outside trees
across the room to double
in that window and back
to the glass door
the christmas tree
will serve it light
from across
the room
afar not
near

the door the tree will go out
once the christmas lights
go out like the year
(off the tree wound
within its wire
and sockets
blue sparks
wait for
failure).    where are the candles ready for flame and place on stone that altars are—
the bees that worked all the summer
blooms for a chance they could be with their god

Poems by Roger Rindge

December 24

Get up early, the womb of night
still enclosing you: your heart
has beaten how many years now,

struggling to translate soul into body,
body into soul—and who is it, inside,
who has watched it all? Each morning

there is a first breath, a first cry;
imagined—remembered—shapes of wings
bear you once more to the earth. How

does the new life free itself
to carry its wild and hopeful news—
how do the accumulated hours

of daylight lay you, each night, in the grave?
This particular morning, dawn
is purple, dark, shepherding all hearts—

and in each, the choir creates the willing ear.
How does any of this work in the world?
The sleepers on the train are not

driven off today—they are let sleep,
curled close in their seats, undisturbed,
running in their dreams to the Child.

___

December 24

Past imagining, you must
yourself lie down on the December
ground by the roadside,
or on the alley’s asphalt amidst the city’s
stone fields, close against its wall,
your knees drawn to your chest, one arm
for pillow, one over your sharpened ear—

and not just for a minute, pretending,
but overnight, until the Roman soldiers
of the age show up to hurry you along
and you gather up the white flock
of your plastic bags you’d unloosed
from the shopping cart—and this,

night after night, until a birth,
until a kind of eviction
from the city, the last days
of its breath in you—past practicing, driven
over the border past life, to behold
the intended shape of what you were.

Poems by Peter Rennick

What Is Christmas Valentine

Every Christmas we return
To the place where we were born
Called back by everything we touched
To forget everything we’ve known
And slip back into our mother’s womb
As she walks through the crowded town
For a few moments we go back
To the comfort of being unborn
Not yet anything the world
Has ever known as if
We left something behind
That could link us to a crime
Some face we overlooked
That must be our own

___

Getting to Christmas Valentine

If only my angel so vague
Could get a word in edgewise
But finally she calms me down
We sit together in the open sun
While she reads from a book
Where it’s all been written down
And down go my defenses
As her voice rises and falls
I barely remember a word she speaks
But the rhythm carries me on
Till we come to the heart of the story
And for a moment she can’t go on
And puts the book down
She still can’t quite believe it
That he would decide to be born
In the most forgotten town on earth
And leave us in heaven to mourn

___

How Buddha Comes to Christmas Valentine

His temple was only a step away
Having swept the paths clean
And thrown the doors wide open
He had invited his old friends
Plato and Elijah over
And all their children
For the festivities of light
When he would ascend with them
To release the soul of the world
Within the enormity of heaven
Constellations peeping down
Where they would drink wine together
On the porch and eat sweet bread
While they waited impatiently
For the little family to gather
And love finally be born

___

Night Music for a Winter Solstice