Work

(Kwakiutl House Frame, on Vancouver Island, British
Columbia, circa 1910, by Edward Curtis, 1868-1952,
American photographer)

“Wherever the arts are nourished through the festive contemplation of universal realities and their sustaining reasons, there in truth something like a liberation occurs: the stepping-out into the open under an endless sky, not only for the creative artist himself but for the beholder as well, even the most humble. Such liberation, such fore-shadowing of the ultimate and perfect fulfillment, is necessary for man, almost more necessary than his daily bread, which is indeed indispensable and yet insufficient.

“In this precisely do I see the meaning of that statement in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, ‘We work so we can have leisure.’”

~ Josef Pieper (1904-1997), German philosopher, from Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation

WORK

This is the house
that must be entered,
the house whose doors
do not lock,
whose walls are shadows
of moving trees,

the house whose table
is heavy with food
already blessed,
waiting under
the mouths in need
of food, of blessings,

the house whose windows
were polished until
they vanished,
whose moon and sun
once painted there
moved inside,

the one whose chimney
breathes a visible
breath at night,
the house whose walls
must be swept
with the wing of a bird.

~ Paulann Petersen, born 1942, American poet and current poet laureate of Oregon

Little Gidding

(Old Bell Tower, 1905, by Edward Curtis,
1868-1952, American photographer)

Today is Ash Wednesday, in the Christian calendar the first day of Lent, the forty-day period of prayer, penance, and fasting in preparation for Easter. On this day, ashes are placed on the foreheads of the faithful as a reminder from Genesis 3:19 that “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

(It is in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, not in the Bible, where we find those famous phrases, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”)

from LITTLE GIDDING

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

~ T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), American-born English poet, playwright, and editor, and winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature

Song for Bringing a Child into the World

(Hopi Mother and Child by Edward Curtis,
1868-1952, American photographer)

Lullabies calm a baby to sleep. Some also introduce the child to the rhythms of life.

SONG FOR BRINGING A CHILD INTO THE WORLD

You day-sun, circling around,
You daylight, circling around,
You night-sun, circling around,
You poor body, circling around,
You wrinkled age, circling around,
You spotted gray, circling around,
You wrinkled skin, circling around.

~ Anonymous, Seminole American Indian

Song of a Woman in Labor

(Assiniboine Mother and Child by Edward Curtis, 1868-1952,
American photographer)

The sounds of birth resonate in sympathetic vibrations with nature.

SONG OF A WOMAN IN LABOR

towering rocks
sound
in the evening
with them
I cry

~ Anonymous, Tohono O’odham American Indian

Lullaby of the Iroquois

(Hoopa Indian Mother and Baby by Edward
Curtis, 1868-1952, American photographer)

Pauline Johnson (1861-1914) was a popular Canadian poet, writer, and entertainer. Her father was Mohawk-Canadian and her mother English. Pauline took on her great-grandfather’s name Tekahionwake, or “double life,” as she toured the country to perform her works on stage, wearing traditional Mohawk dress. She is best-known now for one of her poems, “The Song My Paddle Sings,” and a collection of short stories based on west-coast Squamish legends.

LULLABY OF THE IROQUOIS

Little brown baby-bird, lapped in your nest,
Wrapped in your nest,
Strapped in your nest,
Your straight little cradle-board rocks you to rest;
Its hands are your nest;
Its bands are your nest;
It swings from the down-bending branch of the oak;
You watch the camp flame, and the curling gray smoke;
But, oh, for your pretty black eyes sleep is best, —
Little brown baby of mine, go to rest.

Little brown baby-bird swinging to sleep,
Winging to sleep,
Singing to sleep,
Your wonder-black eyes that so wide open keep,
Shielding their sleep,
Unyielding to sleep,
The heron is homing, the plover is still,
The night-owl calls from his haunt on the hill,
Afar the fox barks, afar the stars peep, —
Little brown baby of mine, go to sleep.

~ Pauline Johnson

Summer

(Arikara Indian Girl Standing by a Stream,
1908, North Dakota by Edward Curtis,
1868-1952, American photographer)

A haiku is a Japanese form of lyric verse expressing, in very few words, a single idea, image, or experience, usually about nature or the seasons. In English, it consists of three short lines, totaling no more than 17 syllables.

Ah, what a pleasure
to cross a stream in summer —
sandals in hand.

~ Yosa Buson (1716-1784), Japanese poet and painter