National Poetry Month-Two by a Very Minor Poet on an Auspicious Occasion
Today is a big day at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock. The Reverend Dan Larsen will be honored by being installed as the first Minister Emeritus in the Congregation’s 145 year history. A certain deservedly obscure and very minor Midwestern poet will read to pieces in the special service this afternoon.
Ordination in Autumn was written almost 15 years ago for Dan’s ordination as a Unitarian Universalist minister. He originally was a Presbyterian and returned to study at Meadville-Lombard to get his U.U. credentials after he was called by the Woodstock Church, which was then named the Congregational Unitarian Church.
The poem used several symbols resonant with the congregation. The oak itself was an echo of the Tree of Life which the church used as its logo. Geese echoed a theme Dan had preached on-the lessons of the geese. The Chalice, of course, was the emblem of the UUA. Not only was the ordination conducted in November, but autumn also reflected Dan’s age, then in his 50’s.
When asked to create a new poem for today’s service, I wanted to repeat some of those themes, making the poems a set to mark major milestone’s in Dan’s career.
Here they are.
Ordination in Autumn
For Dan Larsen
A blare and wedge of geese
rives the somber sky.
A sudden fierceness
stirs the air.
Maples, shorn of gaudy foliage
weave black lattice
against the sky.
A venerable oak
still holds sienna leaves
a-clatter in the breeze.
For an instant the clouds part,
and through the apex
of its oaken crown
comes the sparkling sun,
a flaming chalice
in the autumn air.
The Oak in Winter
For the Rev. Dan Larsen on his installation as
Minster Emeritus of the
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock
April 10, 2011
Shorn at last
of final leather leaves,
one branch high up-
see it there-
dangles where the ice and wind
conspired to snap it.
Squirrel nest balls
cling here and there
high beyond the
the curious energy
of any feral cat.
The Old Oak still stands,
in winter’s fading days,
roots yet thrust
deep and wide,
last year’s acorns
a broken litter
cast far about.
One in a thousand,
they say,
buried by some tenant squirrel
or pressed into giving mud
by a passing boot heel,
will take root
and one fresh seedling
in a hundred
will escape the browsing deer.
The sun lingers,
the snow melts,
those deep roots inhale.
The sap flows,
the labor of a new ring
begins.