Translating Rilke, I.1

This is a first attempt at translating from Rilke's Book of Hours, I.1
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The weight of Time imposed itself:
the clear-sounded ironstroke stirred the hour within me,
a tremor resounding upon my senses.
I am feeling - no -
I am emboldened -
I lay hold of the day to mold Time into its own forms.

No matter comes into its own until I have held it under my full gaze;
meaning awaits my attention
ready, as a bride, to come to the one she desires.

Three poems published

Three poems newly published in the winter issue of miller's pond poetry.

Man Behind the Curtain

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, "Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven." But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test." And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted." (Isaiah 7:10-16)

The promise-sign of a virgin who births a child was given in response to Ahaz's timidity to ask God for a sign. In the Lord's apparent irritation ("how you weary me with your reservation!"), He provides an enigma that Israel's conflict will be over. This episode, like that of Jacob's wrestling, tells me that the Lord is sometimes waiting for us to be bold, brash and even as importunate as the widow who annoyed the judge in Jesus' parable. It is as if to show that approaching Oz in boldness will not reveal a disappointing man behind the curtain, but a surprising God who, in righteousness, mercy and might is ever for us and with us. Immanuel.

First snow, Winter's kiss

My pity for those who only have three words for snow, that is, snow, damnedsnow and Wisconsin. For those who wonder, I think of Minnesota as merely Wisconsin in extremis, and Michigan's UP as Wisconsin with a line through it. Happy Winter. Blessed Christ-mas.

The Last Hour

I think the most amazing words in the Christian faith are these: "Father, forgive them because they don't know what they are doing." In Luke's gospel these words appear just before the exchange between Jesus and the two thieves who were crucified with Him.

A brief detour: In the parable that is often titled 'The Unmerciful Servant', Jesus warns against the fatal hypocrisy of accepting mercy for one's debts while withholding that same mercy from others indebted to us.

When we read Jesus' last encounter with mortals before His death, we quickly identify with the thief who recognizes Jesus' innocence and the injustice done Him, and come away glad we are not like the thief who derided Jesus out of his own bitter suffering. He, we think, deserves what he gets! No mercy for him. No confession, no mercy. No mercy, and how soon we have forgotten Jesus' appeal to His Father just a scant few lines up the page: that His Father forgive those who persecuted and crucified Him - why? - because they did not recognize what the were doing or to Whom they were doing it.

We identify with that mob in the general as we piously assert our culpability as members of the race for whose sins Jesus suffered an unjust and cruel death: the mob Jesus pitied not for their helpless state in original sin, but for not recognizing Him and the meaning of His sacrifice. We humbly accept reconciliation with the Father bought at so great a price. Then we turn around and dissociate ourselves from the specific thief who specifically did not recognize this salvation and to whom Jesus made no specific reply.

Why did Jesus say nothing to the second thief, while promising Paradise to the first? He did not say nothing. He addressed that thief - with the mob and the rest of us - by offering mercy to us all before uttering the promise to the one. Was the thief then forgiven, in spite of himself? In that last hour, what merciful intercession would the Father have not granted His obedient and suffering Son?