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Kentucky Poet Maurice Manning
I've lately been introduced to another Kentucky Poet. Maurice Manning's latest collection, Bucolics, captures tremendous images of God through the dusty vernacular of a farmhand. I saw a quote from Thomas Merton this morning that I liked and that captures the way I am reading Manning's poems. "Cover less ground. More slowly." Here's a good example of the collection:
LXIII
my hay day Boss is every day
the wonder of it never ends
never goes away I never fail
to breathe the sun the summer season
even in the winter even
if the horse's breath is blowing blue
as smoke each time I turn the fork
each time I hear the ring of tines
each time they turn more silver Boss
I taste a long day on my tongue
it's always sweet it's always more
than just a chore I've learned a thing
or two from pitching hay one thing
about the hay it's more than kindling
in the belly of the horse's stove
the second thing beyond the hay
this time about the fork I've made
it's handle shiny from my hands
around its throat so shiny now
it's like a mirror Boss it's like
a glass in which I see your face
your burning eye about to wink
photo: Sam in one of his favorite hiding places.
Labels: quotes
posted by John David Walt | at 2/02/2008 07:32:00 PM
Today...
1 Comments:
Just after your last post I was hearing lecture on Genesis and how the attitude of worship in the OT is "to cultivate and to keep."
Just playing with Manning's style - practice for me...
My Sabbath day Boss is
every day the freshness of
it never pales I cannot stop
from coming near to gaze
thru windows of your heart
should heartache or sickness or
temptation strike there stands
the cross to point me home
though many days Boss I am worn
by tempests of my cultures gold
you are rock unchanged and true
to hold me fast til days are thru
may the workings of my hand
reveal the daughter of thy throne
in aching days of creations groaning
for thy glory in the world be known
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