Bethlehem of Bread

Today being Candlemas, or the feast of the Presentation, it is the last official day of the Epiphany season, which is the end of Christmas, no matter what calendar you follow or what state of denial you exist in. Therefore it is a good day to post this poem that I wrote over Christmas. I wanted to post it during Christmas, but neglecting to do so, I say better late than never. At the Christmas vigil Fr. Mark gave a homily about Bethlehem, in which he said that Bethlehem means "house of bread" and compared it to the Bread of Life. It was such a beautiful and fitting comparison that I had to write a poem about it.

Happy Candlemas!

Snow and Woods

She stood at the window and watched the snow falling outside. It was pleasant, leaning against the window frame and watching the flakes fall gently to the ground, some of them getting caught on the branches of the trees and making light blankets along their backs. The snow had been falling steadily for several hours, and would be for many hours more. It was supposed to be a blizzard. She had never seen a blizzard before, she thought with interest as she watched the snow fall. But she liked new things. She could tell her children about it someday.

A flash of red in one of the trees. A cardinal. She had seen that cardinal before. He settled on a branch and preened himself, obviously aware of his striking color against the backdrop of the snow. He made a pretty picture. Another flash of rusty red on the ground. It was the fox that lived in the woods behind the house. He was a handsome fox, and sometimes came close to the house to show off his fine coat. Two drops of red in the endless white.

She stood for a while longer watching the snow fall and the cardinal in the tree and the fox on the ground, then she moved away from the widow. She put on her boots and her long black coat, and her red hat with the flower on the brim. She opened the door and stepped out into the falling snow. It was falling faster now. It came down lightly on her shoulders and the crown of her red hat, and dusted her black coat.

She moved across the yard, looking up into the bare branches of the trees and the fast-falling snowflakes. The air was cold, and smelled of snow and wood smoke. One of the best smells in the world, she thought. She breathed it deeply and it went tingling through her, and she felt incredibly alive.

She passed behind the shed and into the woods. It was a young wood, and the branches of the tall, thin trees made a lacy pattern against the gray sky. She stopped to look at a tree whose trunk was covered in green ivy, and at a young evergreen tree whose dainty needles wore hats of snow. The air was still. Her footsteps were muffled in the fresh snow as she wound her way through the trees. She was in Narnia, she thought, and half expected the fox to come out and start talking to her, or hear the jingle of the witch's sleigh bells in the distance. She knew Lucy's delight at coming out of the wardrobe into an enchanting snow-clad world. The world is a far lovelier place in the snow, she thought as she ducked under an overhanging branch. All its troubles, all the pettiness and selfishness of mankind vanish under a white blanket for a short time.

She stopped when she came to the stream that cut through the woods. She stood on the bank, warm from her walk through the woods and looked around her. She watched the icy cold water flowing slowly down the stream bed, watched the snowflakes as they touched the water and disappeared. The water stood crisply black against the whiteness of the world. She stood on the bank and looked for a long while, savoring the quietness and the crispness of the air until her feet started to get cold.

She turned away from the water and made her way back, following her footsteps in the snow. In a few hours those footprints would be buried under a few more inches of snow. No one would ever know she had been there. Only herself.

She went back around the shed and across the yard. She stopped at her door and stamped the snow off her boots and shook the snow from her black coat and red hat. She looked at the sky again. There was no telling what time of day it was; the sky was the same pale gray as it had been before, all day long. She opened the door and went in to her warm house. She took off her hat and her coat and hung them to dry, and took off her boots and stuffed her cold feet into slippers. Her face was glowing sharply from the cold and tingled a little as it began to warm again.

She went back and stood by the window. Outside the snow continued to fall and the earth began to sleep under a thick blanket of white.

Lines on a Life

Vera and the Lost Generation

Violets from Plug Street Wood,

Sweet, I send you oversea.

(It is strange they should be blue,

Blue, when his soaked blood was red,

For they grew around his head;

It is strange they should be blue.)

Violets from Plug Street Wood -

Think what they have meant to me -

Life and Hope and Love and You

(And you did not see them grow

Where his mangled body lay

Hiding horror from the day;

Sweetest it was better so.)

Violets from oversea,

To your dear, far forgetting land

These I send in memory,

Knowing you will understand.

Roland Leighton penned these lines to his sweetheart Vera Brittain several months before he died in agony on the Front. He was a young man in love with life, but disillusioned by the bloody struggle he was engaged in. Life, and Love, and Hope, and blood flowing from a mangled body. Such are the thoughts of the Great War poets. It is the historians who write what happened, but it is the poets who record every look, every thought, every feeling. It is the poets who help us to remember.

Since it is a Friday evening and I am alone I watched Testament of Youth, based on the novel by Vera Brittain. It is a movie I have been looking forward to watching ever since I heard about it this summer, and it lived up to my expectations. It recounts Vera's experiences during the war both as a civilian and as a nurse. I often cry during movies, and this was no exception, but it was more than just a sad movie. It is the best movie I have seen in a long time. It is stark and tragic, and achingly beautiful. It is a very real testament to the youth that was crushed during that war. It haunts me as I write this, so many scenes etched in my mind. Of course, no movie can come close to its original book, but this time the movie brought the book to life.

I have long been fascinated with the poetry of the Great War, stemming from a report I gave in college on the topic. I am also fascinated with that period of history. At the beginning of the war, the attitude of the people of England, which is mostly the view we get from the poets, started out in a positive way. In the earlier poems we see these ideas presented: intense  patriotism, struggle  in a righteous cause, the chivalric and heroic aspect of military service, St. George versus the dragon of Central Powers. Vera Brittain and her "Three Musketeers" (her brother Edward and his two friends Victor and Roladn) believe strongly in the war. Vera even convinces her father to let Edward sign up.

But by 1916, and the Battle of the Somme, there was no way anyone could pretend the Great War was a glorious struggle against tyranny. With the casualty lists growing to undreamed-of heights (one striking scene in the movie shows Vera picking up a newspaper and turning page after page of casualties), the lingering remnants of chivalry were wiped out. In the poetry written after the Battle of the Somme, there is a sense of disillusionment brought on by involvement in a senseless war. We see the shattering cost of modern warfare in human terms, the desolation and emptiness of the modern battlefield. Another striking scene from the movie shows Vera walking through the hospital camp just after a new batch of wounded soldiers has been brought in. She sees only a few at first, coming off the trucks, but then she rounds the corner of a building, and far before her stretches a field of wounded men. She stands still, stunned by what she sees, and you can feel her horror and dismay.

Many, Vera Brittain included, were highly disillusioned by the war. Vera went on to be one of the most notable peace protesters of the 20th century. The poet Siegfried Sassoon refused to fight again after being wounded, and was sent to an insane hospital. The few young men left, who should have been enjoying life and love were instead picking up the shards of their lives. A whole generation wiped out. So much talent, so many promising lives wiped out. Roland Leighton wanted to be a writer. Edward Brittain was a musician and a composer. And for what?

They say we record history so that we will not make the same mistake twice. Oh, but we are foolish human beings and we cannot learn from our mistakes. The Great War poets exhort us not to forget the dark years of the war, and what it did to the world and mankind. Siegfried Sassoon writes,"Have you forgotten yet?...Look up and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget." Vera Brittain exhorts us not to forget: "They'll want to forget you. They'll want me to forget. But I can't. I won't. This is my promise to you now, all of you."

When We Were Nine...

Today my youngest brother turns nine. Nine! How time does fly. It seems like just yesterday he was a tiny 6 lb. baby coming home from the hospital. Now he's almost to double digits. I don't want that to happen. I don't want him to become a surly teenager. If only I could freeze time and he would stay little forever. But right now he's still my cute (don't tell him I said that) baby brother who tells me not to be afraid of the rooster and still likes to snuggle and give me kisses and tells me he loves me. He's also my Godson, so he's more than just my cute baby brother.

When he was a baby I wrote a poem about his nap time, or, rather, the travails of keeping a baby asleep in a large family. In honor of Hansie's ninth birthday, here it is.

A Hansie never shuts his eyes

Until the sun is in the skies.

And even then he does not sleep

For long; you see, we cannot keep

Our noisy little Ephrem still.

(Sweet Ephrem is a little pill.)

And, of course, it does not help

When Adelaide gives a loud yelp,

For Mechi’s come and sat beside

The house she’s made, where she must hide

From Nazi’s which do not exsist –

‘Tis long before, she will insist.

Then Mechi sings and runs about,

While Dietrich sorts his legos out

With lots of noise, to make a boat

Or some such thing that will not float.

So Cloe yells, “Be quiet, all!

“Hans can hear you through the wall.”

Now Augustin plays some modern piece

Upon the piano, and will not cease.

So Hansie wakes and starts to cry,

And Cloe heaves a heavy sigh.

It’s hard to keep a baby quiet

In a house that’s full of riot.

Ah, the days. I wish Hansie a very happy birthday and many more years to come. May he never lose his weirdness. And in closing, I quote the birthday boy:

"If we ever are out in the wild and it started to rain and I had a raincoat and you didn't, I'd be willing to give you my raincoat. It probably wouldn't fit you, but you could hold it over your head."

Home is Where...

I woke up to rain this morning. The rain in Virginia doesn't smell as good as the rain in California, but it is still nice to sit by the window and listen to it, and after the ridiculously hot weather of the past few weeks it brings a welcome coolness to the air. I can tell fall is not far off, and I am happy, because it is my favorite season. In danger of sounding unfaithful to my old California, I will say that fall on the east coast is far prettier than fall on the west coast. There is a blaze of color such as I have never seen before, and it delights my heart. I love the fall colors, and I love September. I believe September is the best month of the year. Of course that may partly be because I was born in that month.

Now it is September, and I have been in Virginia for a few weeks. School started this week, and I am getting back into my routine of going to bed earlier and getting up earlier (something I have never really liked) and remembering to pack a lunch the night before so I am not scrambling in the morning because it is not ready. I still miss my California home, but fortunately I have the gift of being content in whatever situation I am in. The transitions are hard for me, but once the transition is over I am fine. And this time my very wonderful cousins met me at the airport and were very excited to see me again. A three-year-old cousin who gets up in the morning and says, "I'm excited because today we're picking up Cloe," is a very good welcome indeed.

But still, leaving your childhood home is never easy. No matter how many times I leave home, it never gets any easier. Every time I spend an extended length of time with my family I tell myself I can't wait to get away again, but when it comes time to leave I'm a sobbing mess. That's the thing about your family: they drive you absolutely crazy-up-the-wall, and they can be so annoying, et cetera and so on...but when it comes down to it, they really aren't all that bad. If nothing else, they will always love you and stick up for you, and they are always there when you need them. And somehow I can't stay away.

***

But now I am going back to Virginia, where the rain just smells damp. Four o'clock in the morning. A sleepless night during which I can't wait for my alarm to ring so I can stop tossing and turning and trying to fall asleep. Everyone gets up to see me off at a quarter to five. And I cry because for some reason I'm going to miss them. That's the thing about families: they're easier to love when you're not living with them. And the family will not stay the same. My older brother is in Illinois; my younger brother and sister are off to college tomorrow; only three left at home. We might not all be back for Christmas. We weren't all back this summer. It makes me sad to think about; I like things to stay the same when I come home. And I'm crying because it doesn't get an easier.

I board the plane at Burbank, feeling rather low. I sit next to a middle-aged couple, and we are silent for a while until I pull out my homemade quilt because the air conditioning is slowly freezing me. The woman and I talk about quilting and sewing, and then she asks me if I'm in school, and I tell her no, I'm working at a Montessori school. We talk about Montessori and other alternative education methods, because she is a speech therapist who works with autistic and Downs-Syndrome kids and prefers the alternative methods.

At Denver (my old stomping-grounds; I used to fly in there when returning to college) I switch planes and this time I sit in an row with an empty seat, and miraculously it stays that way. It is so nice not to be squished in next to another person for several hours. The aisle seat is occupied by an older gentleman with an accent. He seems very kind. He smiles and asks me about my violin which I have stowed in the overhead compartment, and I tell him what it is and about the Manassas Symphony. A little later I take out my writing binder and work on my manuscript, not just editing, but adding large chunks to the story. The man beside me asks me if I am writing a paper and I tell him no, I am writing a book. He expresses genuine interest and tells me about the time he was on a plane and happened to sit next to Stephanie Meyer (who is the author of the Twilight Series). We talk about my writing, and then he tells me about a book he is writing. He is from Columbia (hence the accent) and he is writing a book about his ancestors in Spain and tying it in with his life in Columbia. He seems to come from a very long-lived family: his father lived to be 111 years old! It was altogether a very pleasant conversation and it seemed no time before we were landing at Dulles. I got off the plane with the very rare experience of having rather enjoyed my five-hour flight.

***

They say home is where the heart is. While I have never been fond of platitudes and cliches, I believe this one to be true. Yes, California will always be my home in a way - one cannot so easily forget the place where all of one's childhood memories are made - but now I am in Virginia, and I shall make the best of it. Just last weekend I attended a fabulous music festival and had a good time. There are far less of those sorts of things in California. I find myself looking for the mountains, and I feel a little sad when I do not see the Sierra Nevadas stretching out before me as I stand in a field of golden grass and feel the wind blowing through my hair. And I miss the pungent smell of a California rain
as it hits the dry ground. But out here there are the green trees, the rolling fields of green, and the bright yellow wildflowers that seem to grow everywhere. And soon it will be fall, and the world will be a blaze of red and gold.

Yes, I believe I will be all right.

Remembering the Stars

Six years ago on this feast of the Assumption of Mary I and my fellow campers woke up to snow. The night before we went to sleep under the stars, for once without a tent, and when we woke in the middle of the night we dashed back to the tents, for it was raining. And in the morning we woke up to snow. For a short time our little world of the Wind River Mountains was clothed in pure white, though it was the middle of August.

Today the freshmen of Wyoming Catholic College are on their second week of the three-week wilderness course that marks the beginning of their college career. Perhaps it is snowing on them, as it often seems to do on the 15th of August. Six years ago I too was in my second week of the wilderness course. Now, of course, it is slightly different: while in my time we used the National Outdoor Leadership School (affectionately known as the No Official Lunch School by my group), today’s freshmen go out with the Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries. Yet I am sure it is the same. I am sure the freshmen are just getting used to heavy backpacks, sleeping on the ground, and other uncomfortable situations involved in camping, and I am sure they are looking up at the same stars and feeling the same awe and wonder that I felt at the grandeur of God’s creation.

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins. When I went on my NOLS trip I was unaware of that poem, yet those were my sentiments as I trekked the wilderness of the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. Very often my legs ached, and my feet felt like lead, and I was so tired all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. But those moments of intense beauty and awe were worth it. The views were amazing. Very often when I stood at the crest of a mountain or climbed to the top of a peak I thought to myself, how to describe this to someone? How does one describe sheer beauty? Or when we lay around the campfire one evening in our sleeping bags and watched the stars – the beautiful, bright, clear, stars. Nothing to block our view. No lights, no noise but the little noises of nature and the crackle of the fire. It makes you feel very small, very insignificant; but also very fortunate. I’ll never forget that night around the campfire. We were in a little valley just over the Continental Divide, resting for a few days after making the long and arduous climb over Texas Pass, a mere 11,400 feet in elevation. It was a lovely spot. There was a lake, and grass, and the mountains sloped up all around us like the rim of a giant bowl. And we could see the stars in such glory as I had never seen before or have never seen since.

The other night I lay outside on the swing with my little brother and we watched the stars. The stars are not as bright here in Tehachapi as they were in Wyoming. There are too many lights and too many trees. But they are still beautiful. We lay on the swing and talked and counted shooting stars, and I was peacefully happy. I marveled that those were the same stars I was seeing in the little valley in the mountains six years ago. I have always loved stars, but since my NOLS trip I have loved them even more. There is a comfort in the stars. Though people live and die, though civilizations rise and fall, the stars are always there. They have been there for thousands of years, and will be there for thousands more. In a world that is constantly changing around us, the stars are a fixed point that never changes.

Though my NOLS trip was hard – I would hardly describe myself as an “outdoorsy” type – I am glad to this day that I did it. It gave me new confidence, taught me to be still and listen, and it made me fall in love with God’s world. Out in the wilderness there is no time aside from the natural rising and setting of the sun, and you can hear yourself think. When you pray you feel that God is right beside you, listening. It is a slow life, but it is by no means a boring life. In the bustle of daily life I often forget the quiet beauty of nature, the Holy Ghost brooding over the world. But even if I forget at times, all I have to do is look up to the stars on a pleasant evening, and it all comes back to me. The pain, the mosquito bites, the blisters and tired legs. The sheer exhaustion. But most of all the grandeur of God.