GOLDEN CORD

O Jesus my Lord

We are bound by the cord

Of your love and mine

That do entwine

And will not part.

For not your heart

Nor mine, though it be small,

Will let go, nor little nor all

Of our so mingled love.

Not for all the stars above

Will I be reft of thine

Nor grudge thee aught of mine. 

 

© 2023 by Ruth Heredia

 Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.

 

ANNUNCIATION

 Repeating, for its relevance and timeliness, an old post.

At the Incarnation,
Heaven and earth in little space
became one, as the English early Tudor hymn (ca 1420) puts it.

Yet, the Incarnation began nine months earlier, in a happening rich with significance for a Christian life.

Probably the truest, therefore the best, representation of that moment is the painting of the Annunciation by an artist of no great fame, Domenico Veneziano.

In a bare room, without a prie-dieu or a prayer-book, the angel and Mary face each other. That she is hortus conclusus, an enclosed garden, is implied by the wall around the garden, whose door is shut. The path from it has no footprint.

There is no dove descending in a ray of light. The angel genuflects even as his hand betokens a request. With crossed arms, Mary bows as though sheltering the One who is within. She has already spoken her “Behold the handmaid of the Lord”; already the Lord who sought her acquiescence has found in her his “little space”.

It is a moment of heart-stopping mystical wonder, beauty, and love. Love, humility and obedience, without which there is no Christian life. In Judaeo-Christian tradition, the brightest angel, whose mind was nearest to God’s, fell, “like lightning from Heaven,” as Jesus once said, because he would not bend the knee to any of humankind. They were, as he judged, inferior to angels. He would not do it from obedience, nor even for love, and humility was unknown to the one who became The Adversary.

If the room is bare of material things, it is brimful of love, humility (“let it be done to me,” says Mary, NOT “I accept”), and obedience: in Mary and the angel, and in the One who is unseen but present already in Mary’s womb.

The hymn concludes:
Leave we all this worldly mirth,
And follow we this joyful birth;
    Transeamus.

ANNUNCIATION by DOMENICO VENEZIANO

The maiden was at her prayers,
silent, removed
from garden path and barrèd door.

No whisper of wing, no footprint on path,
Gabriel kneels before her,
wondrous greeting giving;
bringing the Word to her open heart.

In time she will bring forth
the Timeless One, incarnate.
But now in a quiet corner
she bows to her God within,
and the angel kneels to both.

©2012 by Ruth Heredia

  

Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.

POEMS FROM THE PAST

 

DREAMSCAPE

Stones, ancient stones,

bones of old earth she sat on,

Leaning against them while

Into the wine-dark sea

A molten sun sank.

 

Silence and darkness,

darkness and silence;

No god spoke here at Sounion,

No bard, nor hero - but

Their shadows never left her,

Companionable shades,

Leaning on staff or spear,

As she leaned against the columns,

Looking to seas uncharted

And lands as yet unknown.

© 12 August 2010 by Ruth Heredia

Dear Birje

This morning, early, an imprudent action dislocated my right thumb. Ah well, I have four fingers and a mind; my niece said "apricot" (I don't quite know why) & outside the bulbul was going through his new song (last year it was "pleased to meet you"). This followed:

DAYDREAM

Apricot days, give me apricot days,

And cerulean skies,

With breezes snapping laundry,

Ringing carillons on chimes,

Lucent leaves, blossoms glowing,

And a bulbul who just

Wants to dance,

Wants to dance,

Wants to dance with me!

© 8 June 2011 by Ruth Heredia

 

&

REFLECTION

 Light and colour,

Music and motion,

How little have I prized you,

Given unstintingly, nigh all my days,

And now shall I rue

The slowing down,

The blur, the failure,

Who took all as my due?

No, rather shall I give praise

For the days that remain,

And a bulbul’s song

The day long,

In all weathers!

 © 8 June 2011 by Ruth Heredia

About ten days ago there was this:

FIGURE OF EIGHT

Words enigmatic,

ecstatic,

mostly in music

- trad or mod –

make a poem.

How so? Try it.

 © 28 May 2011 by Ruth Heredia

Heaven knows what it means, but it's in 3 sets of 8 beats, and the last line is the cadence.

This sudden flow of words makes me feel quite dizzy. But, to paraphrase Edmundo Ros the Calypso Man, it feels so good to feel so - dizzy!

 Reply from Dr. Birjepatil:

Your delicate word play is as delightful as ever.

I admire the surefooted way you move from line to chiseled line.

I enjoyed all three seemingly 'effortless' efforts as much as the Calypso man would have done.

Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.