FAREWELL TO NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

A fellow poet Bao Phi posted on his Face Book page in early April how he was going to write a poem a day during April, National Poetry Month, and allow himself to experiment, fail and other stuff I can’t remember and can’t find!  I wasn’t going to do it this year, but I decided to write a poem a day for April.  April 30 and counting: I have started 33 new ones—who knows how many will make it to fruition fully.  But it also gave me the chance to experiment and not worry about failure.  Including immersing myself in other poets.  This one was written after reading Gerard Manley Hopkins, like me a priest and a poet.  It’s dedicated to the artists of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, who will bless Powderhorn Park and our community with the 40^th May Day Parade this coming Sunday.

THE GREAT BLUE HERON RETURNS TO POWDERHORN LAKE

Oh great, gangly grey-blue ghost of the shallows,

Stand still on back-bent legs along the lee of the island

Where the willow weeps wistfully to the water’s edge,

Her hair hanging hallowed on the holy love of hydrogen

And oxygen, who do not fret, fight or feud, but frolic

In full freedom, a resting place, a refuge for duck,

Goose, loon, gull, crappie, bullhead, sunnie, snapping turtle,

Bugs big and small and all manner of beasts that swim

Or crawl or fly through our imagination and our delight

In this city of waters, this chalice of homework, heartache

And hallelujahs we call Minneapolis.  Many men and women

March down to these shores, skating solemnly on the skin

Of ice when winter winds its wisdom and its woe, singing

Spring to the sun to strengthen our spirits, forcing

Fire on the 4^th, launching lanterns that long for an end

To war, a weary welcome to peace.  Over all, the long-legged,

Wing-spun, hook-necked fish-finding guardian of our souls

Stands like a “fifth season”, the unseen wind at the center

Of all flesh silent in its breast, its blood a river running

Rampant to the core of the earth, until some hand hidden

In the heart of God bids it rise, bids it fly, bids it circle

The island the lake the city the world the song.

Bao Phi reminded me that today is also the day of “The Fall of Saigon” in 1975.  It is also the day of the final lying down of my grandmother Florence Kelly Daly in 1979. I am so grateful that God has given us poetry—those events, and so many others in our lives can be held, cherished, challenged and transformed by the words we have been so graciously granted.

Be beauty.  Be justice.

Patrick