Hairshirts and Porcupines

Hmm. I just wrote a blog of all blogs (ha!) but it disappeared in blogpurgatory or worse.

Anyway, it had the usual insights which are worthwhile to no one but myself, and explained that family has suggested I focus on one of the books I had begun and one other creative outlet, even putting aside blogging so as to devote myself to the work.

You will have to surmise what the hairshirts and porcupines are all about, but just think about it. And the two or three people who have read my blogs will probably have an inkling, considering that porcupines send out shooting spines when they are threatened and need to defend themselves. Hairshirts are penitential garb, and what is a penance to some is not to others, and what is mortifying for me to endure in clothing is incomprehensible as being painful to most. Oh well.

I was just getting ready to share a couple of poems, so will do this as an "adieu".

One was written 11 years ago, b.c. (before Catholicism) when encountering misunderstanding and persecution (but nothing in comparison to the recent). Yes, this poem could have as easily been written today. I will change but the final word for complete current accuracy.

The second was written on a walk a few years ago in which I experienced a deep insight upon noticing a dead, naked branch in a tree: it was me! I offer this poem as a eulogy upon the death of my beloved sackcloth and ashes, and upon my donning of the colorful, cultural-clothing "hairshirt." My branch has been sawed off, and rather than being dead from the outside in, I am now dead from the inside out, perhaps through and through, as in sawdust blown away and subsumed by the elements.

The only other thought which repeats itself from time to time these days is what Jesus once said to those who did not understand him and mistreated him accordingly. "There will come a time when you will cry out, 'Lord, Lord!", and I will say, 'I do not know you!'" Forgiveness is necessary, yes. Consequences, too, come sooner or later, sadly, one way or another. It is the porcupine's instinct to defend itself and the Christian's responsibility to pray for those who persecute.


No Room

by me

There is no room for a mystic these days,
no room at all.
Standing in temple hall, pain skuttling through body,
too soon words--misunderstood--fall.

Mention experience, encounter with God--
a spiritual reality of soulful ecstasy:
others bristle, form unspoken judgment,
sow frozen seed of lost opportunity.

Unaccepted once more,
learn lonely lesson of silence.
Can't stop screaming sighs,
yearning for Love-of-my-heart,
Lamb's belly breath, burgeoning Womb,
beloved Groom.

Can't they see with inner eye the silver flash,
or hear the tinkling bell of signal grace or
feel the flames of pure desire
for Christ-wed unity?

There is no room for a mystic, these days,
no room at all.
Too strange, an oddity,
spurned as heretical.

Dear God, they doubt my Christianity!
[now: Dear God, they doubt my mental stability!]


The Naked Branch

by me

I am the naked branch.
I feel this truth when buds surround
in leafing green, the spring warmth all around;
and I have none to show, no emerging jewels
to flash and draw acclaim from passers-by.

Jutting branch of silent bark, dark
nudity soon hid by filling in, nature's
brushstrokes, verdent growth, rustling
scented freshness grabbing senses, center stage:
leaves clapping their applause, a summer star attraction.

But I, the naked branch, still am,
undetected, yet attached to living trunk,
seeming dead from outside in, no green illusions
casting spells on those who wish bewitching tones
of dazzling nature's shadow thralls.

For those four-eyes who spy my leafless branch
and sight a deferential "Why?"--my knotholes
in one glance absorb unspoken deprecation--
avert, as if to pray away, in sympathy, the truth
of earthly dishabille: my soul condition.

I am the naked branch.
United with all that lives in rootedness, yet
by some grace of Eminence has died to
that which clutters cumbrous landscapes of the mind,
awaits the golden touch of frozen clime; leaves wither, curl,
and flutter down, crushed humus, unnoticed footfalls now.

Opus Dei! rare orbs which taste and see the
deadened air alive, empurpled branches unentwined
in universal oneness: the living and the living dead.
The tree, alone, stands black on white,
a sacrifice to winter's shawl, dark thorns
grasp clawlike to the sky, shiver "Why?"

Whose ears dug open by obedience
detect salvation's chant?
"I Am the naked branch."