Kingfishers, Dragonflies, and Stones

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; / As tumbled over rim in roundy wells / Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's / Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; / Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: / Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; / Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, / Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.// Í say móre: the just man justices/ [Gerard Manley Hopkins]

About Me

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In "Four Cultures of the West," John O'Malley, SJ, showed us how to read the open book of our own personal experience and look at what we find there. This is what I find about family and friends, academics and humanism, religion and the rule of law.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

September

The year begins for me in September

a cycle of seasons

from the schooldays of youth.


Shorts and bare feet gave way then

to sneakers and corduroys,

pockets full of pencils,


gum erasers and those little notebooks

bought with the hope that a new year

would help me write down


all the assignments,

for a week or so anyway,

till new teachers caught on.


That cycle never broke for me.

This fall brought a new suit,

the same old eager lilt in me,


and a question from a son

being dropped off at school,

"How come you're all dressed up, too?"


Near the office I slowed.

Three caskets on a truck

blocked my way for a while,


then pulled over.

I passed on by,

beginning another school year of life.


[1978]


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