Photo: Say a Prayer

 

Photo: A Mosaic on a Building

 

Poem: "To Satch" by Samuel Washington Allen

Sometimes I feel like I will never stop

Just go on forever
Till one fine mornin
I'm gonna reach up and grab me a handfulla stars
Swing out my long lean leg
And whip three hot strikes burnin down the heavens
And look over a God and say
How about that!!!!

For the beginning of the baseball season

Photo: Parish Retreat

 

Poem: “A Light Exists in Spring” by Emily Dickinson

 A Light exists in Spring

Not present on the Year

At any other period –             

When March is scarcely here

 

A Color stands abroad

On Solitary Fields

That Science cannot overtake

But Human Nature feels.

 

It waits upon the Lawn,

It shows the furthest Tree

Upon the furthest Slope you know

It almost speaks to you.

 

Then as Horizons step

Or Noons report away

Without the Formula of sound

It passes and we stay – 

 

A quality of loss

Affecting our content

As Trade had suddenly encroached

Upon a Sacrament

Photo: Saint Cecilia

 

Poem: Before the fruit is ripened by the sun, by Thomas Troeger

 Before the fruit is ripened by the sun,

Before the petals or the leaves uncoil,
Before the first fine silken root is spun,
A seed is dropped and buried in the soil.

Before the Easter alleluias ring,
Before the massive rock is rolled aside,
Before the fear of death has lost its sting,
A just and loving man is crucified.

Before we gain the grace that comes through loss,
Before we live by more than bread and breath,
Before we lift in joy an empty cross,
We face with Christ the seed’s renewing death.

Poem: “The First Spring Day” by Christina Rossetti

 I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,

If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,

If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun

And crocus fires are kindling one by one:

Sing, robin, sing:

I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

 

I wonder if the springtide of this year

Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;

If heart and spirit will find out their Spring

Or if the world alone will bud and sing:

Sing, hope, to me;

Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes of memory.

 

The sap will surely quicken soon or late,

The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;

So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,

Or in this world, or in this world to come:

Sing, voice of Spring.

Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.

Phogo: St. Cecilia

 

Poem: “Spring Equinox” By: R. S. Thomas

Do not say, referring to the sun

“It’s journey northward has begun,”

As though it were a bird, annually migrating,

That now returns to build in rich trees

Its nest of golden grass. Do not belie

Its lusty health with words such as imply

A pallid invalid recuperating.

The age demands the facts, therefore be brief – 

Others will sense the simile – and say:

“We are turning towards the sun’s indifferent ray.”