by Cathy Baker | Faith |
End of Summer
An agitation of the air,
A perturbation of the light
Admonished me the unloved year
Would turn on its hinge that night.
I stood in the disenchanted field
Amid the stubble and the stones,
Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.
Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part of my life was over.
Already the iron door of the north
Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows
Order their populations forth,
And a cruel wind blows.
Stanley Kunitz, “End of Summer” from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz. Copyright © 1953 by Stanley Kunitz. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Source: The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2002)
Have a favorite line?
Mine: “Blue poured into summer blue”
by Cathy Baker | Faith |
Our country celebrates its independence once a year. Christ followers have the privilege of celebrating our DEpendence on Him with every intake of breath.
Sweet Desperation
Of all the gifts
I know our loving Father brings
The answered prayers,
Protection from all things unseen,
The peace within your heart,
The small, simplistic things.
That cry from deep within your soul
Will bring the greatest joy of all.
He hears the anguish in your call.
The sweetest gift
There is of all
Is desperation.
When there is no place else to run
But to His grace,
To fall upon your knees
And seek His gentle face …
There is no fear He does not know
No wound He cannot bind
And so
The sweetest gift of all I know
Is desperation.
Sweet desperation
Brings you to your Father’s throne.
Surrender all
And be assured you’re not alone.
In your darkest times of need
His light illuminates all things.
Come to Him broken and be healed
With His shed blood you have been sealed.
Find comfort in His love so real
And know …
The sweetest gift of all
Is desperation.
–Submitted by About.com member, Susan L. Condrey.
I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit,
for apart from me you can do nothing.
