In Praise of Hands

Unknown

In Praise of Hands

The heart may falter but the hand goes on.

Wiser than heartbreak, the cool, eyeless hand

Makes bread, makes mortar, lays the cornerstone,

Tills the slow-answering land.

At eight o'clock the mothers plait and part

Their daughters' hair. The factory whistles rise,

The streets grow vocal. Here, bewildered heart,

Your evident answer lies.

Yesterday dwindles while tomorrow grows.

Today is ours - importunate and soon.

Quick, hands! To work! How fast the morning goes.

The whistles blow for noon.

Jessica Nelson North


"The heart may falter but the hand goes on." I wonder if this is parallel to what the caterpillar does. Weaving a garment, constructing a hibernating-house, a renewal chamber - moving unthinkingly according to some instinct or habit or body-knowledge. Sometimes, in deep grief or shock or confusion/fear, the body acts of itself. The feet bring us to old places, the hands lift and move, perform intricate tasks that we watch as if from a great distance. The body continues forward while the mind is motionless. Hidden and still, though surrounded by bustle, by noise and commotion. What is this state? It's not quite paralysis, it's not quite numbness - what is it? And at some point, the bewildered heart comes to, recognizes the passing time, and joins the hands at their work.








 

Hearing the Frogs

Nikita Charushin

Hearing the Frogs

Hearing the frogs in a green marsh

Breaks through the heart's dry twigs, making

A sudden bud upon the harsh

Mind's thorn, pointed and sweet - shaking

Within. Hearing the frogs is like

A fiddle-bow across the heart -

At first so light it leaves no pain,

Until the music strikes a part

Long still, that now must live again.

Frances Ripley Mastin


This is nostalgia all over. I went home not long ago, near to where I grew up, and happened to be outside at dusk when this sound ambushed me. The frogs! It's embarrassing, but I nearly cried. The sound of every spring in my childhood. The sound of greenness, newness, mysterious out-of-the-falling-darkness. Some sounds go right through you, like a shock. (I know I repeat myself, I know I often remark how true a poem feels, well, get ready, here I go again.) Isn't that so true how music, or sound, can awaken something, call something to life that we had forgotten for years? 




 

Double Sonnet

Julia Manning

from Double Sonnet

10.

Tread softly! all the earth is holy ground.
It may be, could we look with seeing eyes,
This spot we stand on is a Paradise
Where dead have come to life and lost been found,
Where Faith has triumphed, Martyrdom been crowned,
Where fools have foiled the wisdom of the wise;
From this same spot the dust of saints may rise,
And the King’s prisoners come to light unbound.
O earth, earth, earth, hear thou thy Maker’s Word:
“Thy dead thou shalt give up, nor hide thy slain”—
Some who went weeping forth shall come again
Rejoicing from the east or from the west,
As doves fly to their windows, love’s own bird
Contented and desirous to the nest.

Christina Rossetti


This is sonnet #10 of 28 from "Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets". This one seems particularly suited to Easter. The idea of the entire earth as a resurrection scene intrigues me. "Where dead have come to life and lost been found." How true, how strange and true. I mean, for one thing, it's Spring, and the dead, brown soil is coming to life again, the bare tree branches are bursting into leaf. And yes, this is the place where generations of wild creatures have been born, where we ourselves grew, and those after us - we are witness to these cycles. I love that "O earth, earth, earth, hear thou thy Maker's Word." it's almost a direct quote from Jeremiah 22:29, a most beautiful call of hope, a reassurance of future resurrection. The Creator's Son has died and risen so that all creation will rise, new, rejoicing. The earth, a Paradise once more. This is the promise of Christianity, and whether one believes it or not, it is compelling. 

 

Theorum

Jeffrey T. Larson

Theorum

Prose can be hard as you like, let it make you restless.

But poetry is a vibration heard when life is dumb:

shadows move on the hills: pictured wind and clouds,

the going of smoke or life: bright, dim, bright.

a quiet-flowing current, deep clouded forests,

slow-mouldering houses, lanes radiating warmth,

a doorsill worn to a crisp, shadow-silence,

a child's timid step into a room's gloom,

a letter from a far country thrust under the door,

so large, so white it fills all the house

or a day so steely and bright you can hear

how the sun nails fast the blue void door.

Eeva-Liisa Manner

Manner is a Finnish poet, and I wonder what is lost in translation. What comes through is that connection between poetry and silence. It seems contradictory that poetry, expressed in words, could be about wordlessness. Maybe a better way to say it would be that poetry expresses something beyond words, like a quiet awareness, or an inner knowing. Manner uses the word "heard", is she implying that poetry is something already there? It makes sense. I mean, it doesn't come from nothing. Perhaps the poet's role is not one of creation so much as hearing/seeing/feeling and then directing that "quiet-flowing current". If that's true, then there are two ways (at least) of experiencing poetry, one in the initial hearing/seeing/feeling, and the other in the translation of that experience into words. Yes, translation. Exactly. I've thought this a while, that poets are translators. But also that all of us experience poems. Those moments when we stop, when we notice the clouds moving, the shadows stretching, the world turning - we are embraced within a breathing, pulsing, moving poem. "A vibration heard when life is dumb." We move within a poem, and are part of it, agents within our "form". There are words for it, yes, but the poem itself is bigger than the words. Life itself is the poem.

First Steps, Brancaster

Nicholas Hely Hutchinson

First Steps, Brancaster

This is the day to leave the dark behind you
Take the adventure, step beyond the hearth,
Shake off at last the shackles that confined you,
And find the courage for the forward path.
You yearned for freedom through the long night watches,
The day has come and you are free to choose,
Now is your time and season.
Companioned still by your familiar crutches,
And leaning on the props you hope to lose,
You step outside and widen your horizon.

After the dimly burning wick of winter
That seemed to dull and darken everything
The April sun shines clear beyond your shelter
And clean as sight itself. The reed-birds sing,
As heaven reaches down to touch the earth
And circle her, revealing everywhere
A lovely, longed-for blue.
Breathe deep and be renewed by every breath,
Kinned to the keen east wind and cleansing air,
As though the blue itself were blowing through you.

You keep the coastal path where edge meets edge,
The sea and salt marsh touching in North Norfolk,
Reed cutters cuttings, patterned in the sedge,
Open and ease the way that you will walk,
Unbroken reeds still wave their feathered fronds
Through which you glimpse the long line of the sea
And hear its healing voice.
Tentative steps begin to break your bonds,
You push on through the pain that sets you free,
Towards the day when broken bones rejoice

Malcolm Guite



“This is the day.”
“The day has come.”
“Now is your time.” 

Walking into freedom, into healing, into a new season – with nature encouraging and welcoming – who wouldn’t want to respond to that invitation?! Who wouldn’t want to step outside?

Probably the best incentive to get some fresh air I’ve ever come across.