Adventus

You came, not for those full of good cheer,
Or those endowed with generosity and human kindness,
Or those who have learned the True Meaning of Christmas,

But for us who weep under the world's weight,
Who scrape and slave to keep the lights on,
Or have fat retirement accounts and empty hearts,

For the lonesome mother at the kitchen sink
Scrubbing a shitstained onesie and wondering
How everything ended up like this,

For the lovetorn poet
Who has tried for years to see the point of it all --
Any point at all -- and keeps coming up short,

For all who wander in darkness,
Overwhelmed and overwrought,
Outdone by chaos that seems inescapable.

You are the point of this pointless world,
The still center of this swirling mess,
The true promise in a sea of disappointment,
The deliverance of a travailing world,
The only answer that makes any sense,
The way out,
The way up,
The fullness that will cure
Our hollow hearts.

Virtualization

Virtualization

Is a tradeoff:

Not a bad one for computer systems,
But not a great one for people made of meat,
Designed to breathe the same air
And warm the same space
As other people made of meat,
To sweat in summer
And shiver in winter
And love and be loved in person, in the meat.

In my virtualized world
I seek the love of those
Who cannot, will not love me back.
I span time and space and culture
To proliferate trivialities,
To consume carefully curated slices of friends,
To sample the fashionable fears and rage and ambitions
Of a perishing world.

 
How much better to keep my head down
And my eyes open here and now?

To seek connection to flesh and blood where I am,
To see the virtual world for what it is:
A neat trick, but ultimately
An empty simulacrum,

A pale imitation,

An overpromising,

Underdelivering

Distraction from the world God made.

All Saints

For Leslie

I remember the last time we spoke
At the Whole Foods in Cool Springs
And I knew death was at work in you,
But I could hardly see it through your radiant light.

You read me a few poems from the book
You would just barely live to see in print
And I promised to preorder it
And you listened to some of my poems, too,
And were so generous and kind in your comments
And now you have permanently breached the veil
And I’m here serving out the rest of my own death sentence.

But I smile to picture how you’ll welcome me –
How you’ll welcome us all –
As we trickle in by ones and twos
Or flood in all at once with a shout and a trumpet
And it will be just like that
February day in Lancaster
When you smiled so wide and warm up front
And eagerly told us of all the joys that waited.

Old English Poetry: A Modest Bibliography

For those who would love to explore Old English poetry beyond Beowulf but don't know where to look, here are some suggestions:

Physical Books:

• The Complete Old English Poems, by Craig Williamson, March 3, 2017 - If you've just GOT to catch 'em all!
• Old English Poetry: An Anthology, by R. M. Liuzza, March 26, 2014 - A good, poetic translation of the most important Old English texts.
• Anglo-Saxon Poetry, by S. A. J. Bradley, February 15, 1995 - A well-regarded prose translation of the major Old English texts, by codex.
• The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation, by Greg Delanty (Editor), Michael Matto (Editor), Seamus Heaney (Foreword), April 9, 2012 - Modern poets take on ancient poems
• An Anthology of Old English Poetry, by Charles William Kennedy, Dec 31, 1960 - much beloved by the previous generation of English students; out of print, but available used

Online Sources:

• The entire corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry is online in the original language at https://sacred-texts.com/neu/ascp/index.htm.
• Translations of nearly 80% of the corpus can be found at https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/.
• The Exeter Book Anthology, Israel Gollancz, (Poems 1-8, parallel Anglo-Saxon / Modern English): https://archive.org/details/publicationsorig104earluoft/page/n5/mode/2up
• The Old English Reader is online in the original with side-by-side textual notes and glossary at www.oereader.ca

Nearly There

I know your breathing,

The sweep of your back,

The proper way to tuck you in,

So why do the six inches

Of bed between us

Feel like six thousand miles?

You’ve embraced my body and tasted my tears

In the holy darkness;

You’ve seen my deep places,

So why do I feel unseen tonight,

Alone right next to

My closest companion?

Tomorrow there will be

Strong coffee and gentle kisses,

Sunrise together on the porch,

But for tonight 

We’re just two ships

Trying not to wreck in the fog.