Wisdom 13:5-9

by Timothy Murphy
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (May 2008).

We worshipped moon and sun,
comets, the circling stars,
Venus and bloodstained Mars,
ignorant of our duty
owed to the unnamed one,
kindler of every beauty
and fire by which we find
the hand, the designing mind
of heaven’s artisan

Advent Carol

From the December 2009 issue of First Things.
By Julie Stoner

Hush that anguished hymn you're humming:
"Come, O Come, Emmanuel."
Trumpet Christmas! Fix his coming
firmly at "The First Nowell."

He's already come in glory!
Why plead, "Savior, come at last"?
Let's talk Christmas! Tell a story
safely in the distant past.

Drown out John the Baptist. Edit
out "Prepare! Make straight the way!"
Cut to Christmas! But on credit.
Square things up another day.

Advent's dreary. Let's start living.
Christmas now! Wear red and green!
While we're at it, skip Thanksgiving!
Deck the halls at Halloween!

Then, when the Incarnate Verb
overnight becomes passé
carry Christmas to the curb.
Pack the Prince of Peace away.

The Widow of Niam

by William Baer

Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (June/July 2008).

I follow the rank corpse, holding my breath,
prepared to bury my son forevermore;
a widow left with nothing, nothing but death,
who prays, but doesn’t know what she’s praying for.
Suddenly, the multitudes appear
following the Rabbi at Niam’s Gate,
who meets my eyes and whispers, “Have no fear.”
The funeral procession stops. I wait.
He turns to sees the corpse of my dead son,
then calls out loud, “I say to thee, arise.”
My son sits on his bier, his death undone,
the flash of heaven gleaming in his eyes.
Then, watching Jesus leave, though shocked and numb,
I know that He’s “the one who is to come.”

Time Management

Luther in the year he spent
as Junker Joerg in Wartburg towers,
translated the New Testament
to pass the everlasting hours.

Though living as a refugee
Erasmus wrote his tour de force.
In Praise of Folly’s said to be
the product of a trip by horse.

With dinners late, D’Aguesseau saw
an opportunity to write
his sixteen-volume work of law
in fifteen minutes every night.

Today I slept late, took a walk,
sipped coffee on my ragged lawn,
checked the mailbox, saw the clock,
and noticed half my life was gone.

by Stephen Scaer
From the June/July 2009 issue of First Things

The Perks

by Midge Goldberg
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (June/July 2008).

Why is Satan not too hot in hell?
He doesn’t seem to suffer like the rest
Who languish there. You’d almost say he’s blessed,
He’s acclimated to the place so well.

Perhaps he has a fast metabolism?
But he can’t be impervious to heat-
That would be kind of silly and defeat
The purpose of this weather-changing schism.

No, there’s a different way he disobeys-
An air-conditioned office where he stays,
A well-stocked mini-fridge that would entice
God himself-cold beer and, oh, the ice!
To his chagrin, he cannot let God know.
From time to time, he mops his brow for show.

Backyard Triumph

by Stephen Scaer
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (August/September 2008).

Truant from April chores
I daydream in a chair
beneath a tree that scatters
its petals when it stirs,
the way a girl might scatter
blossoms before a litter
that brings a self-made god
exultant down her road,
while Calvinistic bees
insist that glory’s brief.

Extend the allegory:
should petals fall before me?
I’ve not been made aware
of having won a war,
and I did not design
a bridge or new vaccine.
The leaves against my fence
betray my indolence.

This fragrant celebration
might be for anyone.
I know it’s undeserved
but that has not deterred
me from taking pleasure
in the soft spring weather.
The triumphs that I seek
are held for their own sake,
and shower us with grace
like petals on the grass.

Charity’s Gift

by Joseph S. Salemi
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (May 2008).

Pinioned here, I look downwards to see
My mother weeping in unfettered grief
Her heart transfixed by swords, beholding
Me Hang from this branch like autumn’s final leaf.

Disciple John-how much more than the rest
My soul smiles on him in completest love!
Mother and friend, by misery oppressed,
Huddle and hunch together. Raised above

This scene of bleeding spirits, I can make
No sign of recognition or concern
Except to speak out from My wooden stake
And give them to each other, for I yearn

To show the world how caritas unties
The bond of blood and flesh, and doing so,
Entwines a new knot even as it dies.
I bid you, mater dolorosa, go

And seek Me in the lambs that I hold dear:
The captives ransomed by My bitter cup-
For through this gift I make love’s mandate clear:
Go wash each other’s wounds, and bind them up.

An Apostle Falls

by A.M. Juster
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (October 2008).

Betrayal had fulfilled the prophecy.
Too proud for penance and too weak to run,
he strung himself up from a cedar tree
and swayed for days beneath a scathing sun.

Thieves cut his desiccated body free,
then left it in the dust. Throughout that night,
Jerusalem kept shuddering with light.

The Annunciation

by Samuel Menashe
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (August/September 2008).

She bows her head
Submissive, yet
Her downcast glance
Asks the angel,
“WhyFor this romance,
Do I qualify?”

Drinking Stars

by Mark Jarman
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (May 2008).

Down in the soul’s wine cellars
The casks of virtue brood.
They’re aging through the centuries,
Like deep Alaskan crude.

The casks of sin, however,
Are daily tapped and flow,
Filling carafes, beakers, and jugs,
Giving each face a glow.

It’s quite a ways below ground,
The soul’s wine cellars dwell.
The casks of sin and virtue stand
So close, it’s hard to tell

Which, when you tap its fullness,
Comes spurting an arcing stream
Into a thimble or a cup,
Into this world or a dream.

But when he takes a sip,
God, the sommelier,
Knows at once the vintage broached
And tosses it away.

The Magi

by A.E. Stallings
Copyright (c) 2007 First Things (December 2007).

Christmas Eve, the Word made Flesh,
We put the baby in the manger,
But could not add them to the crèche—
They still had miles of doubt and danger.

They set out from the staircase landing,
Traveling lightly and untrammeled:
One was kneeling, one was standing,
And our favorite was cameled.

Past falling cards and other perils
They crossed the piano’s dark plateau
Where someone fumbled Christmas carols
And sang of silence, stars and snow.

They camped wherever they were able,
A potted fern for an oasis.
From shelf to windowsill to table,
Night by night, we’d change their places.

The thrill of our own gifts forgot,
No longer new, the batteries
Gone dead, at last they’d reach the spot,
One king already on his knees,

One kneeling, while the camel grunted—
Twelve whole days of Christmas hence—
To give what no child ever wanted:
Gold and myrrh and frankincense.

Augustine’s Confessions, 10.27.38

by Timothy Murphy
Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (October 2008).

Wrongly thinking that beauty lay without,
blindly I cast about.
How late did I begin
to realize your beauty lay within.
To one bereft of sight
you said Let there be light.
Thus to my deafened ear
you called, you cried! hoping that I might hear.
I thirsted, hungered, yearned.
You touched me, and I burned.
How late I came to you,
to beauty ever ancient, ever new.
How late I came to you.