This is Why

[thomryng]

Commemoration of Saints Zeno and Zenas
Seattle

Dear single and faithful reader,

I have not been posting much of late. Mostly it's because I hate to whine to you. My job is killing me by inches, but I have a job, which is more than I can say of many of my friends. I've written not a word on two different stalled novels, but Cruenti Dei thrives. And so it goes.

And then there was today, which in my current state permits me to share this poem, which I have just written and not revised at all. Caveat emptor. Or something.

---

A Sort of a Sonnet Written on the Occasion of My Son Pleading Guilty to Homicide

There is a place where water meets the sea
A beach of bled-white powdered bones ground fine
As moments for a perfect sand that coats
Every choking lung and gritty grey lips
That purse as if to kiss each dead moment.

And only here is the mystery stripped,
The mystery of human suffering
Stripped bare as bones, bleached as a desert bone,
Stripped bare for what it is - the swirl of motes
In a single reedy shaft of sunlight.

We fail because we cannot bear to be
In that bright place where water meets the sea.

---

I am leaving work to go to the Cathedral. Then home.

yours, as always,

thom

Comments

[black-felt-hat.livejournal.com]

...here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

[zator.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you are living in a similar sort of bewildering madness that I am living in.

If it helps, I understand there are meteor showers going on this week. While you are laying awake at night, look up into the sky to see if you can see any.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Was just wondering how you and your family were doing...anything I can do besides pray?

Thank you.

[thomryng.livejournal.com]

Pray. Pray for the conversion of my son. Pray for the soul of India Escobar. Pray.

Re: Thank you.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

You got it.

[contemplatio.livejournal.com]

Are you home already? If not, I will find you at the 5:30 Mass. At any rate, I will light a candle and ask for Joseph's intercession. You know the spot I'm talking about.

[thomryng.livejournal.com]

I'm already on the train heading home.

I spent some undefined but eternal time with my head in my hands in the chapel of the blessed Sacrament.

Thank you.

[chris-sapyta.livejournal.com]

At the pre-dawn Easter service, we traditionally read the Valley of the Dry bones(below). In every ending, there is a beginning. In every beginning, there is an ending. I pray that you and your circle of family and friends can weather this valley storm with Tristan and be reborn with the coming dawn.

Ezekiel 37: 1-3 (4-10) 11-14 (Standard)
Ezekiel 37: 1-14 (RCL)

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." [Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord."

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.]

Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, `Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act," says the Lord.