A Time for Yearning

I meant to write a follow-up to my last post on church and belonging to one, and talk about how I said some things in a way that were probably not the best way to put them. But tonight, I can't write that post, because my heart is yearning.
Tonight, as I drove home from the church building I know every inch of, my heart wanted only to drive, to wander, to go. Every car I passed seemed to be in slow motion, although my foot pressed lighter than usual on the gas pedal. My soul searched for quiet, but hindered its search by clattering around inside of my head. Sometimes, I think I just need to leave. Immediately. So far, there's always been enough reason in me to dissuade me from disappearing (I'm pretty practical...I know that I don't have enough money, or that the vehicle I'm driving will break down before I get somewhere I don't know where I am, or that I'll just feel guilty for leaving). Still, the idea of leaving my life behind is so utterly appealing sometimes.
I have a lot of problems, and on nights like these I start to realize that I will always have a myriad of problems. The idea of always being stuck with problems begins to weigh on me, and the idea of leaving them all behind starts to seem so appealing. Right. As if, by simply driving into the black night until I run out of gas or wakefulness or will, I will no longer have any problems (I'd probably have more than when I left, frankly). But I'm sure you know partly the feeling I'm writing about, where our heart says to go. I grow so tired of my weaknesses, inconsistencies, and shortcomings that are holding me back from where I'd like to be that I would rather just leave all the familiarity behind and make a new life with new problems. I don't like monotony.
But I never leave. Something always holds me back; perhaps the knowledge that fleeing my problems will never solve them, or the understanding that my family loves me more than anyone I'll find elsewhere ever can, or the knowing that God's plan for my life does not include a hare-brained flight across the country in a family vehicle. Whatever it is that stops me from rolling across the blacktop for uncounted miles, what it cannot stop is the restlessness within, the yearning for what I cannot have right now. I want a lot of things, good things, things that God wants me to want, but I have none of them, and will not for a while, or at least until I pass a few more hard tests (not school). I want to allow myself to fall completely in love with a wonderful woman, and I want to know God in the most complete way possible, I want to DIE, I want to have a job that pays for my needs...I want to grow up. I call the desire for all of the good things I don't have yearning. And, in my mind, yearning is a good kind of want.
There are many kinds of wantings, but yearning is one of the best. There is lusting, or coveting, or wanting, or thirsting, or yearning. And others. Tonight, I yearn. Tonight, I make plans to walk across the country with a dog, or bike a famous highway, or canoe a long and muddy river. Tonight, I dream of things I won't do. And, eventually, I realize, with a deep sigh, that tonight is meant to bring me back to Him, like every other night, or day. My times are in His hand. But, deep within, I still yearn. A yearning does not just disappear. Nor should it. Robert Frost knew some of what I'm fruitlessly describing. Maybe he can help you understand what I mean.

Reluctance-Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended; 

I have come by the highway home, 

And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground, 

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things, 

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

So.

Hey guys. Hey. :) I'm into greetings these days. I'm not too sure why. Just humor me.

Lately I've been pondering lots of things, as is my way. Tonight I'm sitting down to try to write down some of the random ideas here, and figure out which ideas you, my beloved readers, would like to see in complete(r) thoughts in a full post. So...here goes.

1) Pain. Why is it here? (mmm...this could be a good one)
2) Why songs have power.
3) An update on the rote, everyday aspects of my life.
4) A song to share.
5) A poem, original or great.
6) Thoughts on why loving people is so hard. And why accepting love is so hard.
7) A recycled writing (i.e., a writing assignment from school)
8) Why questions and why we should ask them.

I have a feeling that's enough to keep you guys busy for a while. :) On another note, if you read my last post on Save Blue Like Jazz...it happened. 10 days and the funding is complete. It should hopefully come out next year. I'm looking forward to seeing it, and I'm working on tempering my expectations and detaching the book from an extremely different screenplay/film.

Hope you all are well! Let me know what you think I should write about.

A Thought Went Up My Mind To-Day

I don't think I've posted Emily here before. And I don't think I've really posted poetry on here for a while either. There is another post inside my head, too...has to do with another thing we have been created for. But it's not ready yet, and I need to appease my avid readership. :) So I give you Emily.She is pretty amazing and there isn't any other poet that writes with the same style of verve. So I hope you like this poem by her. Supposedly, this posthumously famous poet captures the unhealthy adulation of millions of guys who read poetry...I can somewhat see why, but she hasn't gotten me yet. :) So, without further ado, I present:

A Thought Went Up My Mind To-Day
Emily Dickinson

A thought went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish,--some way back,
I could not fix the year,

Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.

But somewhere in my soul, I know
I've met the thing before;
It just reminded me--'t was all--
And came my way no more.

Into the Valley of Death...

This is one of the poems I grew up on...the rhythm and repetitiveness are effective and part of what makes it a great classic poem. Think about it...


Charge of the Light Brigade-Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Sometimes the best thing to do is do something and not think about how stupid it seems. There is Somebody who knows what He is doing in charge, even when it seems like a mistake.

I haven't posted a poem in a long time.

And now I will. My friend Amelia gave me a book of poems by Billy Collins, and I read it...it's really good. I like him, even though he doesn't rhyme. On Mother's Day, Donald Miller posted a poem by Collins that I liked a lot...that was my first exposure to him, in a poem called the Lanyard. I'd recommend reading it...I almost posted it here, but I decided against it in favor of posting The Trouble With Poetry. It's a good poem, and it's a good representation of how Collins writes. Without further typing:

The Trouble With Poetry

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night --
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky --

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti --
to be perfectly honest for a moment --

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.

Busyness, Longing, and Matthew Arnold.

     So I think this has been the longest period between posts since I started this blog, and for that I am sorrowful. I am committed to posting, though, so don't think I've finished regularly updating. I'll try and put more time into a post soon, but this last week and this coming one have been and will be incredibly busy (last week due to set work and this week due to rehearsals and performances of Pocahontas...COME to it!). Throw in the fact that March Madness is finishing up its first weekend of amazing basketball, and the Kansas Jayhawks have advanced to the Sweet Sixteen...(YES!), and I haven't devoted much time to thinking up posts or writing poetry. So today, I'll have to post a great poem by Matthew Arnold, an English poet. I like this poem a lot....

It's called Longing:

Longing

Come to me in my dreams, and then

By day I shall be well again.

For then the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,

A messenger from radiant climes,

And smile on thy new world, and be

As kind to others as to me.

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,

Come now, and let me dream it truth.

And part my hair, and kiss my brow,

And say - My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then

By day I shall be well again.

For then the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.

So. Here's a poem by Richard Wilbur that I found somewhere last year and wrote out in my poetry book. Because I like it a lot. He takes one image, and turns it into a picture that we can clearly see, which conveys a feeling. Pretty sweet writing. I wish I could write like that. Let me know what you think of it.

A Simile for Her Smile

by Richard Wilbur

Your smiling, or the hope, the thought of it,

Makes in my mind such pause and abrupt ease

As when the highway bridgegates fall,

Balking the hasty traffic, which must sit

On each side massed and staring, while

Deliberately the drawbridge starts to rise:

Then horns are hushed, the oilsmoke rarefies,

Above the idling motors one can tell

The packet's smooth approach, the slip,

Slip of the silken river past the sides,

The ringing of clear bells, the dip

And slow cascading of the paddle wheel.

A quick post on Inauguration day that has nothing to do with it being Inauguration day

Ha. Nice title, huh? Anyway, it's been about three or so days since my last post. And I think it may be about time for one of my poems. So I'm displaying one. Perhaps I'll post a more substantial, thought-provoking write-up later in the week. But today, I'll just show you this:

Roadblock
5/11/08

I saw you yesterday
Still, I still didn’t say
Hardly anything.

I wanted to speak.
But the outlook is bleak.
It “wouldn’t look right;”
My flower’s covered with blight.

I’m commanded to hide
The feelings that abide
Deep in my heart.
It hurts like a dart.

I want to be king;
I wanna “do my own thing.”
Still, I obey what I know,
And I didn’t go.

I didn’t move,
I didn’t talk.
It feels so wrong,
Like I don’t belong.

It feels like a roadblock;
Doing what I should.
I’m wishing I could
Pick the lock,
Unlock the cage,
And turn the page.

A Sunday Post: Fragmentary Blue

So, since it's Sunday, I should probably post about something religious-related. But I'm not too sure what to say. But there's a Robert Frost poem that I can talk about and relate somewhat to "eternity in our hearts," so I guess that's what I'll do. Oh, and by the way, since one of the few affordable things on my Christmas list this year was Robert Frost poetry books, guess what I got? Yes, that's right. Robert Frost poetry books. Four of them. For design, I'm liking the Everyman's Pocket Poetry version the best. Anyway...I'm pretty well set for Frost poetry for some time to come.

Alright, so here's Fragmentary Blue:

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)--
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
                        It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

Frost, in this poem, speaks about satisfying our need for the color blue not in small things, but in the sky, which is usually blue and is pretty huge. Looking upward, we can see a vast expanse of blue, and if we look at it with the right view, we can see how amazing it is that we are surrounded almost constantly by a vast blueness that should get our thoughts moving about where the blue came from and why it's there. As Frost says, "It only gives our wish for blue a whet," which means that our desire for the color blue is only temporarily fulfilled. Like all things, we cannot get enough of it, and we cannot be content even with the sky. We always want more, and we never find enough of whatever it is we want.

This post was a bit broken up. I didn't really get my mind to function so well. But maybe you can at least enjoy the poem, and draw your own thoughts from it and some of the things I rambled about. Happy Sunday!

Reluctance-Robert Frost

I LOVE this poem...especially the last two stanzas are simply incredible, and if you don't read much Robert Frost, you need to. He's one of my favorite poets, other than me. : ) Just kidding...he's better than I'll ever be, and I definitely love him more than me...without further ado:

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods

And over the walls I have wended;

I have climbed the hills of view

And looked at the world, and descended;

I have come by the highway home,

And lo, it is ended.

 

The leaves are all dead on the ground,

Save those that the oak is keeping

To ravel them one by one

And let them go scraping and creeping

Out over the crusted snow,

When others are sleeping.

 

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,

No longer blown hither and thither;

The last lone aster is gone;

The flowers of the witch hazel wither;

The heart is still aching to seek,

But the feet question "Whither?"

 

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

 

Robert Frost