the back burner

German songbirds

you see that flock of birds
i wonder do any of them know where they're going
don't worry they think don't worry
i'll just stick with the others flying together it will be romantic
birds are like songs we can't remember

my heart is a flock of birds
it knows the wind it knows to stick together
but it doesn't know where it's going
it just spins and dives like a million other flocks in a million other cities
the birds never leave the same parking lot airspace

unite my heart to fear your name
use nets or hooks use bread crumbs bake me in a pie
remember the songs i have forgotten
consume me sing me back to myself oh let me hear myself sung
else i will never reach your quiet eastern sky

Backpfeifengesicht

(...is my new favorite German word, meaning "face that cries out for a fist in it," or something along those lines. Now, if only I knew how to pronounce it.)

Wesley in the Mornings

"Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only Light,
Son of Righteousness arise,
triumph o'er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Daystar, in my heart appear.

"Dark and cheerless is the morn
unaccompanied by thee;
joyless is the day's return
till thy mercy's beams I see;
till they inward light impart,
glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

"Visit, then, this soul of mine;
pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
fill me, Radiancy divine;
scatter all my unbelief;
more and more thy self display,
shining to the perfect day."

-- Charles Wesley, 1740

(Interesting that Christ's glory fills the skies like light, that Wesley's mornings were joyless until he remembered the always new mercies of God, that unbelief is a scatter-able thing, and that this scattering is connected to Christ's fuller and fuller revelation of himself to the author.)

Czeslaw Milosz

Yesterday I bought an anthology of postwar Polish poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz. Does anybody know anything about this fellow? I only know the obvious things that there are to know: He was born in Lithuania, 1911. He was a Pole. He taught at Berkley. He ws awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1978, the Nobel Prize in 1980. I'll type up one of his poems in the extended entry.

(The l's in his name are actually written with a diagonal slash, like drunken t's. They make the American "w" sound, and the w's make an American "v" sound.)

"Dedication"

You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.

What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty,
Blind force with accomplished shape.

Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city.
And the wind throws screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connaivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.

They used to pour on graves millet or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.

- Translated by the author, 1945.

Urchin

I feel like one, too often. Street urchin, sea urchin, whatever. This life is not about me pretending to be a hedgehog, is it? Hmph. Get that nose out of your mischief and put it to the grindstone, Bob!

Exercise

Today I ran with Paul Simon, singing
down the long hot blue of the bayou:
two high, hot banks ran with us alongside
quiet waters, low and hot and wet beneath.

I passed a dark man sitting by himself.
He sat there like Fate sits, waiting alone
in a white suit, staring hard at that wet ravine
and at a wading bird that hunted fish with careful steps
and burning eyes.

The man was like the heron: white and staring.
I ran between the pair like I was crossing a finish line,
crossing that taut line between two white watchers
while time stretched out in a photo-finish.
It was the end of something.

And while that second stretched, I looked both ways:
the man looking into my face and smiling,
the heron stabbing downwards through water
and through the side of a bluegilled fish
too big to swallow.

I was surrounded. I could go or stay. I went.
"She's got diamonds on the soles of her shoes," sang Paul,
and far below I glimpsed the sinking
silver form of a discarded fish.

Early On

Dusty rails of unused train lines,
Empty skies, and fields of land mines
Girdle tightly round our home.
Pris'ners only,
Close but lonely,
Still we wait afraid to roam.
Wind and prairie, flames that tarry,
Ashes afterwards and rain
Wash the remnants, cleanse the embers
of our heartfire's young refrain.

Ben Harper

He writes songs that I enjoy. They're helpful, even when simple.

Here's the whole of one:

"There is not a river wide,
Not a mountain high,
And neither sin nor evil
Could change how I feel inside.
Could change how I feel inside.

"...Not all the strength of the ocean,
Not all the heat from the sun, from the sun.
Now, others I have tried. I just can't deny:
For me you are the one.
For me you are the one.

"The true love is priceless.
For true love you pay a price.
But there's nothing can keep me from loving you:
Not fire, no not ice.
Not fire, no not ice.

"Like a hero or a champion,
You are the best, you're the best.
Like religion or superstition,
With you I am blessed.
With you I am blessed.

"Now, the river may grow wider.
The mountain may reach past the sky.
And whether or not you feel the same,
My love shall never die.
My love shall never die.

"The true love you give and take.
The true love is sacrifice.
But there's nothing can keep me from loving you:
Not fire, no not ice.
Not fire, no not ice.
Not fire, no not ice."

Finally updated!

My blog is finally updated! I've finally taken time to type up and backdate a good portion of the things I have been writing down this month, for all of you supporters and friends and family-members out there who have nothing better to do. :) Read, comment, enjoy. Thanks for stopping by.

Community Reminder

Does anybody know what translation this verse uses?

a pied

The cars make most of the music --
the cars and the dripping of gutters.
Les Bruxellois have wrapped themselves with clouds.
They pass me. I cannot see them.
Those who are not out this evening
hide in stronger cloaks of brick and mortar.

I am alone with disregarded thoughts.
Through the week, the month --
no, the year, they have drifted discarded
in the corners of my corpse.

This entire life I've spun with music, lights, and magical horses.
I have only now descended from my carousel,
stepping into a strange skin in a strange city,
where inhabitants walk through an empty town as ghosts.

They are holding their breaths to see what will come.
They are the invisible watchers,
those who wait upon ils ne savent quoi.

They have become backdrop to an intermission.
I walk on alone and unreal,
a temporary distraction from the stage itself.

Day 31 (Saturday)

Nearly everyone left today and the hospitality center is dark. Lights are off. Hallways are quiet. I always enjoy staying just a bit later than everyone else, when I can. I'm glad it worked that way, this time, because it gives me a chance to gather my thoughts and impressions from the month. Whereas exit interviews and learning contracts give me some structural framework to hang all the ideas upon, spending time alone helps me to make a framework for all the month's relationships. I really do think some of these will turn into long-term attachments, though that may sound naive.

Tonight I'm spending time with E and T at the Ms'. It's frites night there, just like almost every Saturday night for the last 15 years or so. It's an M family tradition that has always seemed a little odd to me. Of course, it emphasizes some pretty important things about home and family. It has allowed the M children to put their family on display for others -- and vice versa -- in a non-threatening way. Spouses-to-be (or not to be) have come to frites night, as have countless friends and hungry missionaries. It's a chance to relax and put the week into perspective. Community happenings are discussed. It offers a chance for everyone to exercise hospitality and charity in their speaking and cooking and eating and washing-up. It emphasizes service.

I'm ready to affirm all of these things -- each one is a comfortable concept for me. What makes me squirm somewhat is that the M rarely go out to eat. J always cooks more or less the same meal for frites night. Afterwards, everyone sits and talks, or plays a game, or does a puzzle. It's simple. I want the unexpected and the sophisticated, not simplicity. And this is another grace that has been afforded me through frites night invitations: a chance to see my own idols of sophistication as they really are. At best, those desires for unfamiliar, sophisticated things are only chances to impress other people. These idols tend to spoil for their worshippers all of the healthful aspects of a simple life. At worst, they poison me against the gospel -- for the message of grace is, after all, a very simple one. I'm not saying that sophistication is always a bad thing. I'm just realizing that it is dangerous, I think. For me, sophistication is dangerous because it produces the twin fruits of criticism and self-importance.

Living in Europe means struggling with these sorts of things, moreso that living in poverty. Perhaps this is the beginning of an answer to the question of why God did not allow me to work in the Third World, just yet. Perhaps this is a lesson that did not fully take root at Covenant and at the Chalmers Center. I hope I will learn it well.