the trees stand
A part of me is so fatigued that it's given up looking to feel refreshed. I no longer believe in rest. There is only work, or guiltily not working. It's the same part that equally expects to weep after good days and after bad: the good days, because they are over.
Christianity, like Judaism, is a religion about waiting. It's about yearning for the coming of what has been promised, either patiently or passionately. Perhaps both. //Maranatha// We sing in Aramaic, Come. Come ransom us, we captives, we exiled. Renew the face of the earth. Oh Wisdom, Oh Adonai, Root of Jesse, Key of David. Oh Rising Sun, King of the Nations. Oh Immanuel. Come. 1500 years, the same song, 2000 years in expectation, after 2000 years of anticipation.
"Our hearts are restless until we rest in Thee."
But all I understand is striving. Progress and regression. By grace, by receptivity, by that openness which must be courted. It is work to be attentive. To listen, to be affected, to be vulnerable, is work. It is promised our that Lover cometh. We are wooed through the lattice of fragile flesh, allured by sweet perfumes, by song, through the rhetoric of creation. We are finally addressed in Person. Love is ever present. It is coming. It was here. It is now. Already, not yet. If only we seek. If only we seek to be sought. Longing. A long, long, long time.
Adam persisted in loneliness until the creation of Eve, manifestly flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone at once. God gave him the plants and animals to name, but all the language in the world wasn't enough. But Eve never waited for her Adam.
A mystic, drunk with God. A stuttering hymn of praise, thrumming through taut tendons. Satisfied, but not sated, hot nerves aware, every thread of consciousness awake.
They lived suddenly without thinking under honest trees. The man ate the fruit she offered because he could not bear to be severed from his only companion, even if it required a partnership in sin. The fruit was consumed. The trees stood. Toil, after the fall.
I remember the movie Phenomenon because the same distinctive sixths are in the background. Two of them in sequence, //high, low//, separated by a minor third, slowly, at the rhythm you might breathe when relaxed. The wind blows through the trees, and they sway from side to side, like a mother rocking her child. The man and woman sigh. Lace, he says, and she smiles, and he sleeps. Aaron Copland employed the same intervals to evoke riding alone on horseback through open night, empty and distant under the stars. Tchaikovsky chose them to depict the dark swirl of the Arabian dancers, mournfully performing ballet in a dream. I remember the sound from inside my mother's womb. I remember. The rocking, the haunting sixths, one,,two,,, The wind through the trees, bending, dipping, swaying, the rhythm of breath, a sigh, a dissipating.
All the wombs of the earth produce fruit only through labor. The Spirit blows. The woods stutter and sing. The breath delivers the word. A song, a serenade, though the lattice window. Come down. I've come. Are you coming? I'm coming.
Where, there, and here differ only by a letter. When is another matter entirely.
The yoke is easy and the burden light. But in the garden that night, He wept and sweat tears of blood. Blood like my blood and flesh like my flesh.
and they named it the tree of life. which stands.
Where is Adam?
__________
a wind has blow the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand.....i think i too have known
autumn too long
(((((((((((((((((((((((((and what have you to say,
wind wind wind---did you love somebody
and have you the petal of somewhere
in your heart ?) ) ) ) ) ) )
....a wind has blown the rain
away and the leaves and the sky and the
trees stand:
the trees stand.....The trees,
suddenly wait against the moon's face.
~
e e cummings
Christianity, like Judaism, is a religion about waiting. It's about yearning for the coming of what has been promised, either patiently or passionately. Perhaps both. //Maranatha// We sing in Aramaic, Come. Come ransom us, we captives, we exiled. Renew the face of the earth. Oh Wisdom, Oh Adonai, Root of Jesse, Key of David. Oh Rising Sun, King of the Nations. Oh Immanuel. Come. 1500 years, the same song, 2000 years in expectation, after 2000 years of anticipation.
"Our hearts are restless until we rest in Thee."
But all I understand is striving. Progress and regression. By grace, by receptivity, by that openness which must be courted. It is work to be attentive. To listen, to be affected, to be vulnerable, is work. It is promised our that Lover cometh. We are wooed through the lattice of fragile flesh, allured by sweet perfumes, by song, through the rhetoric of creation. We are finally addressed in Person. Love is ever present. It is coming. It was here. It is now. Already, not yet. If only we seek. If only we seek to be sought. Longing. A long, long, long time.
Adam persisted in loneliness until the creation of Eve, manifestly flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone at once. God gave him the plants and animals to name, but all the language in the world wasn't enough. But Eve never waited for her Adam.
A mystic, drunk with God. A stuttering hymn of praise, thrumming through taut tendons. Satisfied, but not sated, hot nerves aware, every thread of consciousness awake.
They lived suddenly without thinking under honest trees. The man ate the fruit she offered because he could not bear to be severed from his only companion, even if it required a partnership in sin. The fruit was consumed. The trees stood. Toil, after the fall.
I remember the movie Phenomenon because the same distinctive sixths are in the background. Two of them in sequence, //high, low//, separated by a minor third, slowly, at the rhythm you might breathe when relaxed. The wind blows through the trees, and they sway from side to side, like a mother rocking her child. The man and woman sigh. Lace, he says, and she smiles, and he sleeps. Aaron Copland employed the same intervals to evoke riding alone on horseback through open night, empty and distant under the stars. Tchaikovsky chose them to depict the dark swirl of the Arabian dancers, mournfully performing ballet in a dream. I remember the sound from inside my mother's womb. I remember. The rocking, the haunting sixths, one,,two,,, The wind through the trees, bending, dipping, swaying, the rhythm of breath, a sigh, a dissipating.
All the wombs of the earth produce fruit only through labor. The Spirit blows. The woods stutter and sing. The breath delivers the word. A song, a serenade, though the lattice window. Come down. I've come. Are you coming? I'm coming.
Where, there, and here differ only by a letter. When is another matter entirely.
The yoke is easy and the burden light. But in the garden that night, He wept and sweat tears of blood. Blood like my blood and flesh like my flesh.
and they named it the tree of life. which stands.
Where is Adam?
__________
a wind has blow the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand.....i think i too have known
autumn too long
(((((((((((((((((((((((((and what have you to say,
wind wind wind---did you love somebody
and have you the petal of somewhere
in your heart ?) ) ) ) ) ) )
....a wind has blown the rain
away and the leaves and the sky and the
trees stand:
the trees stand.....The trees,
suddenly wait against the moon's face.
~
e e cummings