A poem by Mark Decarteret

Since a child I have been drawn
to the Sun, the pleasure it gleans

from Its senseless abandonment, Its furious mane
like a caravan camped in the desert, born

from the betrayal of body, each dawn
into eternity. What I have seen

and endured, I will imitate, wean,
myself of this world, be done

with sensation, the smoke from smoldering husks
rearing up sickly sweet with its promise

of flame and in turn dismember
my wardrobe, stack up this hair as if brush,

bend my bones as if kindling, so the Sun’s kiss
reduces my resistance into embers.

The poem taken from a wonderful collection of poetry: ‘Place of Passage: Contemporary Catholic Poetry’.  Researching the poet, I came across an insightful quote, revealing his methods of operation.  The quote is taken from the above linked website.

Boy, the episodes that provoked “Pink Eye” are a bit foggy, unlogged.  An idea arising as much from an advertisement for sties, this study for an experimental treatment, (poetry as protuberance, swelling, even somewhat of an affliction or curse?) as Thoreau’s excursions to the outer reaches of Massachusetts where he was subjected to the wreckage of many a ship (as well as on Fire Island where Emerson was “to charge” him in the retrieval of the remains of their friend Margaret Fuller, a passenger on the sunken Elizabeth), thus poetry as recovery, salvage, or in a remedial sense, potential cure-all or salve.  And maybe some modest and misguided version of what Harold Bloom refers to as a “shore-ode,” verse that “identifies night, death, the mother, and the sea.”  But basically I was struck by this strange juxtaposition–the bereft hermit resigned to his calling, this mission, and those odd maladies, which not only impair or hamper the seeing of anything through, but in some miraculous way, let it be recast, transfigured.    

a poem by Stella Nesanovich, enjoy the video exploring the life and thoughts of the poet.

Hildegard of Bingen at 80 before the prelates of Mainz, 1178

Like a quill impelled to write
I saw myself in that same vision
God imprinted on my soul at birth,
Do not presume I come to confess
sins I have not committed.
The corpse was brought by priests
and all Bingen in procession.
A black cloud hovers to hurl a storm
of cries were the man exhumed.

Bittersweet hunger for sacred bread
gnaws at those who rightly buried
the man that you call rebel.
At Rupertsburg all ritual and song
have ceased, yet your proviso stings
most vilely. Hope of holy burial is balm
while we are living, incentive
for penance and right action. Loss
of final anointing chafes me sorely.

Too, the body cloaks a soul which speaks
its life through voice. What river of night
shuts the mouths of God’s created?
Curve of shell and leaf resonate
as music and God’s Word. His Son
takes flesh again each time we sing,
chanting melodies nine choirs
of angels hum and restoring symphonia
destroyed by Adam. Fingerlike
notes reflect celestial harmony
while such divine sounds of psaltery
and voice echo in our souls
to teach us love and thus rejoicing.

Proceed with care, most holy prelates.
This interplay of cymbals God intends.
Would you give Satan a trumpet,
play the discord he adores, and halt
the leaps of souls to heaven?
Right you are to shuffle
and flip parchment. Remain
unmoved at your own peril.
Those who hold the keys of heaven
must be extremely careful lest
they close what should be open

Simple heart,
Wounded, exasperated, and tired,
On through the night waiting,
The sharp pain of Siddharth the intern’s needle stitching,
Mending the laceration coalescing,
The body a burden of pain,
Breathing through my eyes,
Breathing out the past,
Accepting, contritely and acquiescing,
The tugging rawness absent extreme pain,
Falling asleep lacking reminiscence,