Photo: The Return of the Swan Boats

 

Poem: “Spring” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (1844-1889)

 Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – 

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;

Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring 

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush

The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

 

What is all this juice and all this joy?

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden – Have, get, before it cloy,

Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,

Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Photo: Spanish fuel for a marathon

 

Poem: “The Lily” by Mary Oliver (American, 1935-2019)

 Night after night 

darkness 

enters the face 

of the lily 

 

which, lightly, 

closes its five walls 

around itself, 

and its purse 

 

of honey, 

and its fragrance, 

and is content 

to stand there 

 

In the garden, 

not quite sleeping, 

and, maybe, 

saying in lily language 

 

some small words 

we can’t hear 

even when there is no wind 

anywhere, 

 

its lips 

are so secret, 

its tongue 

is so hidden – 

 

or, maybe, 

it says nothing at all 

but just stands there 

with the patience 

 

of vegetables 

and saints 

until the whole earth has turned around 

and the silver moon 

 

becomes the golden sun – 

as the lily absolutely knew it would, 

which is itself, isn’t it, 

the perfect prayer?

Photo: Resting on a Sabbath

 

Poem: “The Resurrection Prayers of Magdalen, Peter, and Two Youths” by John Shea (American, b.1941)

 In Peter’s dreams 

the cock still crowed.                      

He returned to Galilee 

to throw nets into the sea 

and watch them sink 

like memories into darkness. 

He did not curse the sun 

that rolled down his back 

or the wind that drove 

the fish beyond his nets. 

He only waited for the morning 

when the shore mist would lift 

and from his boat he would see him. 

Then after a naked and impetuous swim 

with the sea running from his eyes 

he would find a cook 

with holes in his hands 

and stooped over dawn coals 

who would offer him the Kingdom of God 

for breakfast.

Prayer: “The Wounds of Love," by Unknown

 The wounds of Jesus show us how costly love can be.

Those who care about others pick up a lot of wounds.

There may be no great wounds, 

only a multiplicity of little ones.

But there can also be a lot of invisible wounds: 

the furrows left on the mind and heart 

by hardship, worry, and anxiety.

These wounds are not things to be ashamed of.

They are more like badges of honor.

They are the proof of our love.

Photo: Ignatius of Loyola

 

Poem: “A Prayer in Spring” by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

 Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

 

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchid white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

 

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid-air stands still.

 

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.

Photo: Blue Hues