SEED AMONG CEDAR

My soul, an empty birdfeeder,

Attracts no winged thing,

Without the seed among cedar,

The forest seldom sings.

On Sabbath morn come fill anew

This empty heart of mine;

With suet cakes and seeds to woo,

The feathered life divine.

“God’s little theologians”* come

To teach my soul your story;

No anxious cares within this home,

When filled with heaven’s glory.

*Martin Luther’s affectionate term for birds

D. Robinson 3.18.11

A NEW DAY BECKONS

A NEW DAY BECKONS

A new day beckons hearts awake to sing

As jeweled dew drops freshen every blade

A flash of flicker-flight on morning wing

Through Hemlock boughs renews the forest glade.

Eternity arises with the dawn

In misty shrouded forests by the sea

The sword fern camouflage the sleeping fawn

Beneath the soaring Cedar canopy.

Awake my soul, your morning anthem raise

To join the Varied Thrush in Matin’s cry

Leap up my soul, your Recreator praise

In silent wonder seek him eye to eye.

The darkness fades, behold the new day breaks

As all creation in Christ’s light awakes. 

~a sonnet by David Robinson

LOVELY IN EYES NOT HIS

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

 ~by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

TWO RAVENS FLYING SOUTHWARD

 Two Ravens Flying Southward 

~ a sonnet ~

Two ravens flying southward over Vail,

Caught our eye and ears as they passed by,

Conversing on the wing as if to say,

"How regrettable to walk and never fly."

Katanoesate! Jesus declares,

To study with intent to understand!

Our corvid masters of the azure airs

Unveil their secrets to the mind of Man.

Earthbound without machines, we long to soar,

Beyond the petty pavement 'neath our feet,

Into the mystery of raven lore,

Hidden deep within mountain retreat.

Remove the weights of ignorance and dross,

Reveal the Way, the Truth, Thy Holy Cross.*

*These two ravens were spotted flying above the ridge near the Eagle's Nest, above Vail, Colorado, flying towards the Mountain of the Holy Cross on Sept. 5, 2011.This sonnet composed by D. Robinson on 9/5/11.

THE COLOR BLUE

After weeks of grey skies,

Mornings hanging heavy in mist,
Afternoon sheets streaking down
Upon mid-July expectations,
Of sun and warmth and summer,
Dampened by the constant wetness,
The great green land awakens,
To the color blue overlooking
This earth in beatific episcopacy,
With quiet grace only interrupted
By birdsong among the evergreens,
Jays chattering in nearby Hemlocks,
Song Sparrows lifting up their Lauds,
Among sun-dappled Alder branches,
Unseen except by echoes of melody,
This morning's the first and only
Morning of day's birth under divinity's
Blessing and comforting canopy of blue. 
~By David Robinson, 7.18.11

THE ALTAR

A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears,
Made of a heart, and cemented with tears:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch'd the same
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow'r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy Name:
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

 
The Altar, by George Herbert (1633, from Herbert's poetry collection, "The Temple)

George Herbert (1593 – 1633), born in Wales, and a well-known English poet, served for many years as a priest in the Church of England. Educated at Cambridge University, he excelled in languages and music. He served for a few years in parliament before entering ministry. In 1630, while in his late thirties, he stepped into full-time life as a priest in a small parish near Salisbury, England. He is best known for his collections of sacred poetry. 

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night 
at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, 
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

By Wendell Berry
Collected Poems (North Point Press, 1985).

SONNET FOR THE DAWN

After  the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. ...Suddently Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him.   ~Matthew 28:1,9 

A new day beckons hearts awake to sing,
As jeweled dew drops freshen every blade,
A flash of flicker-flight on morning wing,
Through Hemlock boughs renews the forest glade.

Eternity arises with the dawn,
In misty shrouded forests by the sea,
The sword fern camouflage the sleeping fawn,
Beneath the soaring Cedar canopy.

Awake my soul, your morning anthem raise,
To join the Varied Thrush in Matin’s cry,
Leap up my soul, your Recreator praise,
In silent wonder seek him eye to eye.

The darkness fades, behold the new day breaks,
As all creation in Christ’s light awakes.

SEED AMONG CEDAR

My soul, an empty birdfeeder,

Attracts no winged thing,

Without the seed among cedar,

The forest seldom sings.

On Sabbath morn come fill anew

This empty heart of mine;

With suet cakes and seeds to woo,

The feathered life divine.

“God’s little theologians”* come

To teach my soul your story;

No anxious cares within this home,

When filled with heaven’s glory.

*Martin Luther’s affectionate term for birds

D. Robinson 3.18.11

THRUSH SONG SONNET

From high above in conifers she sings,

With dual voices simultaneously heard,

The varied thrush a shy retiring bird,

Whose simple haunting song in forest rings.

For years I wondered who composed the song,

While walking in the rain among the trees;

I heard the high-pitched notes my ear to please,

Though ignorant to whom the call belonged.

We learn the names of countless feathered wings,

Their shapes and colors, food and habitat,

The chickadee, the junco and nuthatch,

Their sight and song a fleeting glory brings.

To match the thrush song to the varied thrush

A gift of orange wonder under brush. 

~David Robinson, 3.3.11

RISING

A songbird sings into my ear,

"Awake thy soul to sing,"

Of morning light and ever near,

A sense of wondering.

What lies ahead? What lies ahead?

My heartbeat asks again,

As day awakens me from bed,

To walk out in the rain.

The mist hangs low and heavily,

Uniting sea and sky,

My heart leaps up and readily,

I yearn to learn to fly.

The eastern skies illuminate,

With lavenders and red,

The sleepy headlands as they wait,

The rising from the dead. 

By David Robinson, 2.28.11

DESK AND DAUGHTER

I wonder whose desk that was,

Now discarded southward, pushed

Years ago over the edge beyond

The broken cement foundation pile

Among rotting sheets of plywood

And construction projects abandoned.

Morning glory and blackberry vines

Race to embrace the fallen furniture,

Creeping quietly into drawers to peek

Into rain-soaked files spilling out,

Half-buried in among the weeds.

I wonder when she sat at this desk,

Whether she ever envisioned mere

Mortality of poorly built pressboard

Mahogany veneered cabinetry now

Forsaken. What letters, verses, memories,

Prayers, laments and loves came pouring

Forth from her fountain pen to page?

What forbidden love, secretly indulged,

Hidden desires or dreams never realized,

Confessed here upon this sacred place,

Now neglected, decaying, abandoned.

I wonder if skeletal remains of

Desks and daughters could converse

What stories they would tell,

What psalms they would chant,

What confessions they would hear,

What dreams they would dream?

The monastic cemetery rests within,

View, fewer than fifty yards away

Cloistered among evergreen trees

Gravestones marching across the grass

In well-ordered simplicity and silence.

If she could arise at midnight and

Walk those few fifty steps westward

To this site, this rejected heap,

And see again this broken form that

Once was her desk, those long years

Of psalms and service, prayers and

Redirected passions, now melted away

As morning mist that once hung heavy

Among gnarled apple trees in the orchard.

I wonder what these two would say

And how they may greet and bow
Before the Christ and each other

With enduring modesty and grace. 

~written by David Robinson

ANOINTING

 A Sonnet on Anointing

The moon in fullness smiles upon the night,

Among the darkened trees a glimmer shines,

In pleasant places are the boundary  lines,

Along the shadowed lane Epiphany’s light.

We’re welcomed in with grace and warmth and tea,

To ponder pains of partings, loss and grief,

To bear another’s burdens brings relief,

We’re lightened singing confitemini.

With invocations, candlelight and song,

The oil of gladness brightening our hearts,

Anointing flows from heaven’s healing arts,

From Bethlehem we join the festive throng.

Your cross and passion Christ to us you bring

Eternal life and healing love to sing.

~David Robinson, January 21, 2011

KNOWING STARS

I wish I could name more of these stars.
I know the big dipper,
but I wish I could say
"Oh, there's Pleiades,
and Andromeda"
For to know the name 
is the beginning of understanding;
and to understand
is to conquer.
But it is not for the conquering
that I name,
but to know.
To know its essence.
So that by knowing,
I may become more one with.
And perhaps by knowing the world around me,
I may better know myself.

VERGE BETWEEN

Here I sit on this verge between,
Grey and blue, and all around green.
Little raindrops from the sky,
Fall upon this knoll up high.
Aye, the wind, is but a breeze.
Gust upon gust, nothing to seize.

As I huddle from the rain,
I think of all creation lain:
In the heavens and on the earth
All the glory nature does birth.
Thankful for the life I’ve seen,
As I sit on this verge between.

- Thomas Robinson

HE WILL COME LIKE THE FROST

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
one night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like the frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

~Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

I WONDER AS I WANDER

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
~John Jacob Niles
 

Perhaps the greatest loss we experience as we move from childhood into adult is losing our sense of wonder. Children are full of wonder. As children, our lives are naturally alert to the surprises, pleasures and beauty of life pulsating all around us. Children are quick to take delight in little things, like shiny stones along a river bank or the winter thrill of snowflakes.

Socrates claimed, “The beginning of wisdom is wonder.” Months after returning from hiking in Olympic National Park each eary, I’ve feasted richly upon the sounds and sights of that week of wonder.

Wonder most often comes as a surprise. We wander into it unknowing. We gaze and gaze attempting to take in the sight of glory. Our words fall short; yet, our hearts well up with an inner sense of wonder. Thus, wonder is a twice blessed gift, giving delight in our first encounter with such fullness; and once again as we look with that inward eye, as Wordsworth wrote, ‘which is the bliss of solitude’. As we take time to reflect upon the vision of wonder, our hearts fill once again with pleasure and we discover ourselves dancing ‘with the daffodils’.

For many, the month of December, and the season of Advent. are times reminding of us of childlike wonder. As we celebrate the coming of Christ, our home begins to fill with those delights which come out only once a year.

During Christmas, we expect the unexpected. We become children once again. We take time to wonder. In our return to childhood, we share together the delight of wonder. We look up into the clear December sky and think of that Bethlehem star that once led wise men to the place of wonder. There, they laid down their gifts before the Christ child, kneeling to worship and honor the child who would be King.

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

On Christmas eve, we gather together, joined by a common sense of wonder at God’s generosity. We sing carols celebrating the coming of God into our darkened world to save ‘poor on’ry people, like you and like I’. Too often, we’ve given up our innocence, trading in our childhood wonder for electronic entertainment or trivialities.

How can we return? How can we find our way back to that five year old age of innocence where we might once again take delight in rain drops falling on our faces? We can travel together to that place of wonder. The way is illuminated by poetry and song. Sing together those lovely Christmas carols, even in July as you wander through a natural cathedral of ancient trees and allow your heart to wonder as you wander out under the sky.

LOVE'S PURE LIGHT

 Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ, the Saviour is born
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth 

May you know love's pure light, the radiant beams from the face of God, filling your heart and home with heavenly peace!

Lyrics by Joseph Mohr, 1816

FOR LIBERTY

The monks are praying Psalms at this dark hour,

Their vigil chant awakening the dawn,

I too this night am wakened by the power

The will to live to see the morning sun.

Our cat has caught a mouse with vigil care,

From some unknown dark corner down beneath,

With mouse in mouth she prays her vigil prayer,

Her prey still praying, begging for release. 

Survival beats a drum in every heart,

The cat and mouse, the lion and the lamb,

We all desire another dawning start,

To raise our praise to Abrams' captive Ram.

I caught the mouse to set it forest free,

With beating grateful heart for liberty.

(Sonnet written by David Robinson, November 8, 2010, at 4:30a.m.)

THE WINEPRESS

 

The Winepress

A Sonnet

Prepara te ad pressuras, advised
Augustine, knowing well the way of strife,
‘Prepare yourself for pressures’, heed the wise,
By yielding heart and body, soul and life.
With clusters hanging heavy from the vine,
September’s sun sends sweetness to the lush,
While harvesters move slowly down the line,
In vats the grapes to gather and to crush.
Of old did Jesus trod by Galilee
In Cana changed the water into wine
The first unveiled sign of life divine
The winepress on the road to Calvary
'Let every one of you, your pressures fetch
Good liquor from the winepress so to catch’*

~by David Robinson, October 2007

The image of pressing grapes in a winepress was commonly used in the Middle Ages to describe the work of God in the lives of believers who were facing pressures and troubles. While the work of pressing grapes is an autumnal event in the northern hemisphere, in February, the vineyards are being pruned back in preparation for the growth of grapes for the fall harvest. Most of the European grape harvest was just completed a few weeks ago. In past years, as we've helped in the vineyard during harvest, I've thought of the hard labor of pruning the vines, which is usually done in January or February, in the cold, wet months of winter. As Jesus taught, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful" (John 15:1-2).

 

*quote in final couplet of sonnet from a Doctor of Ministry lecture by Dr. James Bradley on spiritual formation in the 17th century, Fuller Theological Seminary, October 2007. Photo by David Robinson, from vineyard overlooking Botzingen, Germany; Spat Burgunder grapes in early October.