Monday Poetry

Pearl of Desire

Would that there was such a thing as love--

A thing that wears a comely coat of blossoms

Sending soothing aromas with the breeze.

Would this thing evoke a feeling in one's self –

A discovery that life – his life

Fits him like a glove.

Such is the thought of one who does not dare

To speak of the life within his heart.

A life of passion, yet no one for whom to care.

Will it be able to break the stillness –

To give him cause to wonder?

What of the vision of life that is his burden?

This is the grain that irritates his soul –

A catalyst for his spirit, yet

Close to the divine that cannot be his role.

This carnal life seems to be but a dream –

A flurry of fleeting desires, evaporating

In the passing of momentary mortal eruptions.

So where does he turn when the realization

of his mortal desires grips his soul,

Rending his dreams and, with them his life?

Where does he turn to achieve the stillness

of inner peace? The answer is in

The pearl of desire that eludes his soul.

from Preludes of the Mind, James Henderson, August, 1995

Monday Morning Poetry

The classic  New England poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson brilliantly personified a winter blizzard in his poem “The Snow-Storm.”  In Emerson’s work, the high winds of the storm become a capricious artist. In the wake of the blizzard he discovers a snowy wonderland designed by a whimsical, half-mad architect. 

The Snow-Storm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.


Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Selected Writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson. New American Library, 2003 (1957).

Monday Morning Poetry*

Two from "The Kingdom of Music"

Dear Gustave, Dear Adrian

"In the end naivete lies at the bottom of being, all being, even the most conscious and complicated."  -Thomas Mann,  Doctor Faustus

Spun in the seams of light

Parting the clouds of sight,

We see the vision of man

Decayed by his own destiny.

Just as we want to look

Past our own self to the book

We create, history stands astride

Our vision of all humanity.

Marking time in the closeness

Of all this academic business,

You live the passion of words,

I, the music of eternity.

Each of us frames our genius

In the light of those around us,

Spinning our artful inspirations

Outward with eternal creativity.

Grasping the slender threads

Of light that become mere beads,

We part from our original vision

As we reach for infinity.

Crushed by the weight of eons

We join the good Europeans,

Falling evermore downward while

Creating our world's modernity.

James Henderson, 1991 

Champagne

A crowded room with friends, warmly

Filled with chatting, buzzing. While sharing

Current memories of friendly

Yesterdays.

Within the buzz sensations of new

offerings, perchance of future memories.

Each a  portent  or promise of friendlier

Tomorrows. 

James Henderson, January, 2007

* Published on a Friday that seems like Monday.

Monday Morning Poetry

I Miss the Flag

to Stephen and Walter

On a summer morning I notice the empty balcony

above. I wonder at the forlorn bushes

Standing green against the grain of the sunny

day.

Over in the window a wilted flower stands

bereft in its brownish deadness,

Reminder of the care once given by hands

that filled the room with life,

and flowers, but now are

gone away.

But most of all I miss the flag

That flew unfurled most every day,

A reminder of the loving couple inside

and their interesting care for each other

and the world.

The Uncut Page

"the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime."

-   Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

Looking past the scene in the mirror,

I long for the past – my life of regret,

so filled with unreflected acts.   Yet sorrow seems

to have arisen from deep, unfulfilled dreams.

Where did my days go, deeds undone

falling with the leaves?   A life

stolen from the unconscious mist

of another world.

Now I try to lift the knife and discover

what remains within - uncut, undone deeds.

Not dreams of the future, but pale  

hints of the past.

As I recline in my study the page

slips through my open hand.

Lacking the deeds I cannot summon  

the will to face reality.

from  'Portraits'  by James Henderson, 2004, 2010

Monday Morning Poetry

Two Preludes

The Siren

"The comb she holds is golden,

She sings a song as well

Whose melody binds an enthralling

And overpowering spell."

- Heinrich Heine, "Lorelai"

Lost in the passion and purity of a moment of silence

I sit transfigured by the murmurs of my heart.

Wishing for the fountain of life, I sense before me

The riddle of the Earth--the beginning of desire.

To start with a note or a word--how do I create

The beginning of my work of art--my end?

What is the feeling which suddenly strikes

Deep within my soul?  Lacking awareness

I sit, trembling before the touch of his hand--

Merely the thought of it permeates my being.

Bound to the mast of desire I force

Myself to choose--to change.

We each speak from the core of our souls--drawing

on images created in moments of inspiration.

Our passion is informed by individual reasons.

Yet, do we really know of what we speak?

I sit, dumb within my solipsistic world--

A world dumb in its unreality, for

If it is dependent on will alone,

Whose will is it to be?

I sit, trembling at the faint remains 

Of ghostly images--selves forgotten.

I am no longer.  Who am I?  Where do I go?

How do I move my body without the desire for what is?

I will conquer the tempter with silence.

Even as my burgeoning boldness grows I find

Through choice-- the source of desire within me.

Joy is the result of the victory.

Carrels

“Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime.” 

― Andrew Marvell

The sight of books wearing colored papers like party hats

Leads me to meditate on the distance between the books

And the stacks.  The time is spent in carrels, and that's

not inconsequential for the readers whose studious looks

are defeated by the the books piled on the sidelines -

The ones with the colorful favors  just beyond their spines.

Readers cherish the time spent perusing books in 

the Babylon of culture that houses folios. But is it sin

to while away the moments of your life in another world?

The Borgesian maze that is home to ideas that are furled

in books of all sizes and languages lures too often-times.

While entry fees are paid with the cost of missed deadlines.

- from Preludes of the Mind, 2012 (2007), James Henderson