Type and Time with Dr. Suess

This man of mine,

This man of mine;

I do so love this man of mine.

With spine of godly steel and mirth,

What greater treasure have I on earth?

And I can trust him in a slump,

And he abides through life bump

No manied hand, or daisy word

The precepts of God's truth, thought ward-

In times like these, of nilly tide,

The chasm grows now ever wide-

Between the men with chests

And them, that have no Godward heart within,

This man of mine,

This man of mine;

I do so need this man of mine.

With chasten'n word or purpose stout,

A refuge from the world without.

No mammon agenda, tho' dusty he be,

With stalwart heart he leadth me.

Unto the Well of Life, and then

Asks me to spill it forth again.

Not woman of a runway - me,

But grounded, lovely, gracious, free,

To follow as he follows Christ.

Against the self identified-

It is not him, or me, or them,

That made that evil lie therein.

If we do live for "I" alone,

We find this world a paltry  home.

In dying first; first him, then me

We 'flect a type of Christ and see

It is redemption's plan set forth

The gain is freedom and much more

So less than that, no bargain be-

As is the wage of living "me".

This man of mine,

This man of mine:

A gift of God, this man of mine.

To set a pace, toward heaven we go.

Yet, ancient rival still a foe.

He,  crushed fully in the cross,

Amid blood stains, his power lost.

Tho', frail he is - this man I see,

Yet, he is but a type for me-

Of One True Man came down in time,

That binds us to Kingdom Divine.

-JN

 

Life in Paradox

A paradox to us is told,

In blood, split scarlet through-

The center of Story old

For us, nary is left to do.

 

Of binds that tie and hold

us fast, in Love, abides and will

recoil the curse, bring to the fold

all earth, and His' as well.

 

We hope in what we cannot see,

Hold fast to Whom we know

He dawned this dust, in Him we be

Our paradoxical abode.

-JN

 

Paradox fascinates me.  Light and darkness, death and life, joy and sadness - they ask the question that begs for an answer or least a stop in day to day subsistence.

 

My daughter is a gentle and true critic.  Her comments, "You've improved your rhyme and diction, that's really great, Mom. Poetry is about painting a picture not preaching a sermon."  She then pulled out one of Flannery O'Connor's essays.  She chose a few excerpts.  I leafed through and chose one of mine own.

 

The idea of being a writer attracts a good many shiftless people, those who are merely burdened with poetic feelings or afflicted with sensibility. - F.  O'Conner, Mystery and Manners, p.85

This is one of Kel's excerpts that was in short followed up with this sentence, "When you write a poem are you starting with the grand idea that you want to tell people about or are you starting with an object you want to describe to them?"

The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it; - ibid p.77

My thoughts on that mirror in thankfulness one of O'Conner's comments at the end of "The Nature and Aim of Fiction"-

I believe the teacher's work is largely negative, that it is largely a matter of saying "This doesn't work because..." or "This does work because...."  The because is very important.  The teacher can help you understand the nature of your medium, he can guide you in your reading. ibid, p.86

 Diction - getting better- check.  Rhyme - improving- yeah! Studying the spider on my front porch - homework!