Archive for Weekly Literature

Weekly Literature: Self Written

Posted by: Jason | August 1st, 2008 · 12:45 PM

Beside the Great Pin Oak

The pin oak tree he planted blossoms green by the old church. Through harsh winter wear, it stood content like an isolated farmer, thinking alone in his tall grass field. Now in spring’s command, with sunlight grazing its stark limbs, a symbol for new life.

The old man and I stood below its withered branches weeks before his passing; it lent its soft shade to our conversations and hid the children’s Easter eggs. I haven’t seen him since.

Its ushering arms lean towards the church, like an old friend greeting in secrecy as I glance and remember. Only the two of us know we speak.

A year passed since our embrace, in terms that never knew their weight. We share our stories briefly now through random glimpses of pin oaks, on graying hills and hidden peaks.

JMM

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Weekly Literature: Birches, Robert Frost

Posted by: Jason | July 25th, 2008 · 10:56 AM

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

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Beside the Great Pin Oak

Posted by: Jason | April 8th, 2007 · 1:15 AM

The pin oak tree is quite different today. As spring arrives, it will blossom into something full and green, shedding its bare texture, and becoming beautiful again.

Through the harsh winter cold, it took a hardened view of the world, as it does each year. But now, the sun is gazing down on its limbs and branches, making it a symbol for new life.

I remember Father Bill on this Easter day, as a symbol, like the pin oak. For it was one year ago when I last saw him, before his passing weeks later.

There’s a great deal of symbolism in this, between the man I miss, and the Easter holiday. For as I celebrate Christ, who rose again, so will I celebrate the pin oak, each and every time this year, as its new shape takes form, helping me to remember him.

It was a year ago this day, when my friend last said goodbye to me, by the great pin oak. He stood aside the place of his life’s work, where marriages were formed, children baptized, and families given the word of the Lord. How appropriate it was to say goodbye to him there, to be remembered last in that special place.

I miss my friend, Father Bill, but know that he’s still with me, in a different way.

Perhaps as I miss him each time this year, I’ll think of the pin oaks that he loved so much, as they form into something beautiful again.

JMM, 2007

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Weekly Literature: Herman Melville

Posted by: Jason | April 7th, 2007 · 1:21 PM

(image: babygotbooks)

I wrote a piece that meant a lot to me the other day, titled On Life. It was based on a personal experience I had with helping a friend that had lost his unborn child.

In the statement, I had mentioned a comparison to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, in particular one chapter, titled The Line, where the main character Ishmael is discussing whale lines, and their relevance to life itself. Dormant are lines, before at any moment they can be set off as unpredictable things, like life itself that is subject to such times of turbulence, leaving us victim to tragedy.

In case you haven’t read Moby Dick, which every American serious about the history of literature should, below is Chapter 60, The Line, which I had referenced in my post. It makes for a good Saturday read.
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Weekly Literature: Sir Francis Bacon, Help Lord

Posted by: Jason | March 4th, 2007 · 9:54 PM

Help Lord, for godly men have took their flight,
And left the earth to be the wicked’s den:
Not one that standeth fast to Truth and Right,
But fears, or seeks to please, the eyes of men.
When one with other fall’s to take apart,
Their meaning goeth not with their words in proof;
But fair they flatter, with a cloven heart,
By pleasing words, to work their own behoof.

But God cut off the lips, that are all set,
To trap the harmless soul, that peace hath vow’d;
And pierce the tongues, that seek to counterfeit
The confidence of truth, by lying loud:
Yet so they think to reign, and work their will,
By subtle speech, which enters every where:
And say, our tongues are ours, to help us still,
What need we any higher power to fear?

Now for the bitter sighing of the poor,
The lord hath said, I will no more forbear,
The wicked’s kingdom to invade and scour,
And set at large the men restrain’d in fear.
And sure, the word of God is pure, and fine.
And in the trial never loseth weight;
Like noble gold, which, since it left the mine,
Hath seven times passed through the fiery straight.

And now thou wilt not first thy word forsake,
Nor yet the righteous man, that leans thereto;
But will’t his safe protection undertake,
In spite of all, their force and wiles can do.
And time it is, O Lord, thou didst draw nigh,
The wicked daily do enlarge their bands;
And that, which makes them follow ill a vie,
Rule is betaken to unworthy hands.

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Quote of the Week: Thomas Paine

Posted by: Jason | February 18th, 2007 · 11:25 AM

“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind”.

Thomas Paine, 1776

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Weekly Literature: Ulalume, Edgar Allan Poe

Posted by: Jason | February 17th, 2007 · 4:58 PM

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere-
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir-
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. More >>>

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