fair children
(because I started Tuesday)
Mundy
like Grundy
and
that sad
poem
imposed on children
for
the learning of the days of the week
like the A text in the primer
with
the other letters
that
trends toward grim
and imposing
daunting
as it is doctrinal
and then what comes to mind
that seven-stages
speech
by Jaques in the play
that
is ironic
and I think so bitter
like
the speech on Yorick without
the humor
however darkly
to
receive
how often to be cynical
by art
how often
to be turned toward empty
cubicles of thinking
of
resistance unapplied toward
better thought
even
of joy
to be alive if
yes
I know it’s hard
from time to time
and
some of us
it seems
by style
so Monday’s child
fair of
face
and is there beauty on the Earth
and inside
and where is fair
but as we think and feel
and act
which all seems obvious
I know
like
great
truths we all have heard
and maybe
can recite
yet get our governments with
the governing
the
governed
in
each one by each one
then corporate
actual
to apply
and so give fairness of the Earth
all
children of the Earth
a chance
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(New England Primer, As You Like It, Hamlet)
photo by Yannis H on Unsplash
good and gay
born on Sunday
though
there are other sabbath
days
if
Sunday seems to be the thing
bonnie
pretty
blithe
with elastic goodness
promising to last
to lengthen throughout life
like
the toils of Saturday’s
child
good as in moral
as
in making choices
to delight the
faithful
and confound the worldly
gay
that has been joyful
and still
such a child
always
a child with the rest and so
to grow up with these qualities
yet
shall we say
only
a rhyme that indicates devices
learning days
or
and as
the qualities set
for
these and as the week is covered
for us all
to consider when we’re placed
and so how
we’ll
live
though the magic more so
remains in decisions
that is to say
and
as you
dear
know
in the will of each and every
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here’s the verse as I remember
Monday’s child is fair of face;
Tuesday’s child is full of grace;
Wednesday’s child is full of woe;
Thursday’s child has far to go;
Friday’s child is loving and giving;
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
but the child who’s born on the Sabbath day
is bonnie and blithe and good and gay.
(easier or more difficult for the Sabbath child?)
photo by Allec Gomes on Unsplash
Saturday’s child works
hard at jobs that never cease
could wage to a fault
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photo by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa on Unsplash
the day you were born
according to the calendar
and I’ve checked
it more
than once
I was a Thursday child
and so had far
to go
which is a mystery at
least
to me
for
don’t we all have far to go
to get somewhere
in life and maybe
afterlife
in face
that after this is done
does not the distance unfold
grandly
for each one
and
all
so what is far to go
maybe
far to go for satisfaction
for fullness
in breathing and work
(the
work of breathing)
or
maybe for
philosophy to gain and so to carry
through
the trials of thought and feeling
faced in the world
wondrous
fallen
virtuous
Calvinistically depraved
pursuit beyond a declaration
for a nation
or
to help secure it for others
affirm at least when
despotry breaks in
then
attempting to persist
so maybe it is
freedom
and the distance we all have to go
in
service to others
and ourselves
in that
somewhere is far to go
at any rate
metaphor for what’s ahead
and
an assurance that little will happen toward
instant completion
loving and giving
for
Friday’s child
so says
the rhyme
loving and giving as if
starting qualities and to
sustain through
live
and to go for everything that’s needed
to keep going in this way
through
all the time and all phenomena
that happen
requiring
a bounty
I should think of
faith
and confidence
to have the wherewithal for these
and to secure the job
that funds the giving
and
might fortify the loving
so
where should Friday be if not
in a good place and
with resources
all
the time
so who loves and gives in Ukraine
just now or
Gaza
or pick a torn-up
place where one is likely to lose all
and
have to flee
get wounds bound up
also
to deal with loss of health
and companionship
of
family
as well as neighborhood and one’s identity
not only of the circles as
they Venn
but of the single
self
that comes at the beginning and then
knows the joining with the rest
somehow
I think
Bonhoeffer
managed loving and giving through
the rise
the war
the horrors
and the sacrifice of
life
like the prayer of thanks
not
to be a guard
and more so for the pastor’s life
to give it
in the camp so that another
person
live
and so the living and the giving
the worst in the world
plus
the best in spirit
and so
in surfeit or in want
the capacities
for each to
live
as Friday
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian who was imprisoned and killed in World War 2
photograph by Jon Tyson at Unsplash
VIA SACRA
full of grace
Tuesday’s child
what
kind of grace
I wonder
doctrinal or
looks or
manners as in good at dinner
or knows the steps
for
a party
maybe it’s the kind of luck
that person shall
have
the good kind if not
grand
as things fall together
for school
or work
or family
by belief the certainty of heaven
after
such an afterlife secured for
in feeling by the clear and
dovetailed angel
management
of
life
full of woe
(a Wednesday poem)
finally
some color outside both windows
nothing brilliant but
tingeworthy
and shall there be honest fall
or shall this aspect of climate change
cause too many to fall brown and
withered
from too-soon dessicated
branches the season
unseasonal
went
too hot too long
for riotous autumnal virtue
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photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash
Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival 2018
invocationing
I pray
for you
for my niece
and her brother
and
her parents
for the healing of my brother
after
surgery
for continued success
in sibling and grand-sibling
lives
I pray for peace
but more immediately for
binding wounds in
Gaza
and Ukraine
in
Myanmar
Tibet
and for this nation that it heal
in all the needed and
surprising ways
not
by bringing home the military to
enforce
unconstitutionally
and
we remember founding documents
in
establishing
policy and practice
affirmation
action
toward the three things guaranteed
in a declaration
leading to a war of sacrifice
to make
and keep us as that great experiment
in democracy
you know
I think you know
so
I also pray for strangers
names I know
and don’t
groups
and for those loving impositions
values
in treating fair
respecting lives
all
colors of the outside
plus
you know
the sameness on the inside
pray
for differences
and similarities
as
both are needed for a person
family
community
nation and we may look out
to take in
the versatility of the cosmos
with
what goes the same
and all uniquenesses discovered
for
one
and for the Earth
and far beyond
and really close inside
amen
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photo by Ben Gillam on Unsplash
sabbath call
and Sunday is for God to rest
or how you count
could be
another day
the seventh
and I just heard it might be only once
for God
after creating
and
thus also
a model for the rest of us
once here to take that seventh day
ourselves and by directive
slowly
breathe
and without doubt
to
rest
and
well
I hope it’s God and us who rest
each time
since creating is a constant
and should not the breath of God
go easy for God
too
at
times
say
once a week
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photo by Frankie Cordoba on Unsplash
one forest remains
energy needs more than air
leaving machine world
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photo by Maximalfocus on Unsplash
better news
1
better news
that God loves us
and sent
the child of God
to
live and innocent and perfect life
and then to be
killed
by the powers of the world
and the princes of the air
and
yet not have that be done
be it
and there is so much
more
because the child came back
up to Earth
if that was the direction
out
to all
to offer the child’s resurrection
from death to life
to a life for each of
us
and life that goes on
forever
finally
on a renewed Earth
beside or somewhere near
or in
a new heaven
and that’s our job
believe
2
feeling Christian
this morning
or
recalling who I am
and
that God sent God through
the Spirit of the Lord
so that
not only this
sect
but the whole world of us
might
believe and so be saved
from death
and
for this day and
the next and
on
be saved from sin as well
the whole word
John 3:17
remember to share it this way
a gospel for everyone
3
and will
we guess at
for
fun or profit
or in what we might
take
as the conquest of space
whether or not
Jesus
came to Mars
on comets
inside asteroids
and
shall Christ be there
awaiting lunar Artemis
as we
begin again
which is all right
‘cause Jesus has saved Mars
comets and asteroids and
first for us
the moon
for
the silent planet speaks again
and all that happened
here
to revive and fallen
pick us up so we
might
carry on again
miracle
new song
and our own arriving
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C. S. Lewis posits a cosmically quiet Earth and us in Out of the Silent Planet
photo by Petri Haanpää on Unsplash
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