Poetry

The Breaking of the Shells

Posted February 12th, 2010 by RiverCocytus

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Poetry

Sometimes I write a poem I think a wider audience might enjoy.

The Breaking of the Shells

An Ode in Seven Quatrains.

It is the time so soon indeed
Of the breaking of the shells
Child among the sand and weed
Feet awet of salty swells

On waters raised the cosmic berth
Our own old salty teller tells
On water vessel runs of earth
For the breaking of the shells

A small crustacean flees in fears
Fearing tolling of the bells
Telling crack of sound in ears
In the breaking of the shells

A mollusk buries hiding flesh
For its pearls is digging wells
But water works a rising mesh
With the breaking of the shells

The son who bears the wood for home
Set aside for seaside spells
Does his father's order's come
At the breaking of the shells

Hiding thing as beast betwixt
Calcified of suffered cells
In a blow so swift is fix'd
Through the breaking of the shells

Now to home the child is bound
Fair through air of salty smells
In this way the lost are found
In the breaking of the shells.

On How Every Christian is to be a Poet

Posted October 16th, 2009 by RiverCocytus

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Some interesting things have collected, as you shall see, in the past two weeks. A lot has come up personally, and like waves and the tides has risen high and threatening, but with endurance and steadfastness has fallen back down to level.

Firstly, I'll offer a passage from the Unseen Warfare (one of my presiding elders, as I like to call 'em) regarding the physical aspects of prayer, or in particular, repetitive prayer:

(7)Note also, that attention should be in the heart, or inside the breast .... - and there the Jesus Prayer should be repeated. When the heart begins to ache with tension ... leave that place and establish yourself with your attention with the words of prayer where we usually converse with ourselves... - Do not disdain this remark, however simple and unspiritual it may seem to you.

On a recent visit to St. Vlad's seminary, we had been recommended this exact thing; and it made me suspicious at first, not having read a precedent for it ever before, but then, here it is, right in the Unseen Warfare. Previous to this, the author says,

...or only with mental prostration...

Which is precisely what this is! This is of course, putting the mind in the heart only in the mental / physical sense, and not in the spiritual sense which constitutes true prayer; but it seems like it is something anyone can do which is helpful (provided it is done with the warning in mind.)

I've noticed that when we talk about the heart, we often divide it into two categories; the first is the physical blood-pumping organ, and the second is the emotional center of the brain.

H.N.Y.

Posted September 1st, 2009 by RiverCocytus

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Some years close with copious snows
And cheeks of rose and red and green
Others chose when frost first slows
To lead the nose of new-year's spring

Others slip and spin and turn within
When come ag'in I can't recall
O Moons come in and go akin
For twelve and then to drop the ball?

But for solution a contribution
(a revolution!) is quite in order
Renew a motion from summer's ocean
A wave emotion, an august border;

For if the day should begin this way
Let's make a stay for eventide
The year I say her works allay
September day, the news abide!

What Then, Is Christmas

Posted December 26th, 2007 by RiverCocytus

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What then is Christmas?
That in the dark
of the womb / of the world / of the winter / of antiquity
would come / ineffable Light?