DAY 69 (July 18th, 2017)

You are the mystery (excerpt)

    you are the mystery that
is placed upon the Lord’s table.
You receive the mystery that is
yourself.
To that which you are,
you will respond,
‘Amen.’

DAY 70 (July 19th, 2017)

Drink My Wine (Logion 108, The Gospel of Thomas)

Jesus said,

Drink my wine
you will become me
I will become you
and all that is hidden
you will see
with your own eyes.

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

DO NOT SORROW

Do not sorrow
for the loss of this world and its lessons.

Even now, they wait patiently at the table—
the wine poured in silver goblets.

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

Both of the poems above came from Roger Housden’s for lovers of god everywhere, which you can purchase on Amazon.

DAY 67 (July 16th, 2017)

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

DAY 68 (July 17th, 2017)

I Look into my Glass

I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, ‘Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!’

For then I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN TO A MAN

How does this happen to a man—
that he is too crippled to walk?
or that his encrusted mind crumbles into
fractured gibberish?

How easy it is to love
with the loss of one’s body.
How fragile it is—like an eggshell.

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

DAY 65 (July 14th, 2017)

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

DAY 66 (July 15th, 2017)

To see the Summer Sky

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie—
True Poems flee—

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

SUMMER DAYS

Cherish the long, warm days
when you can walk unencumbered in the open air
and listen to little girls
play in the fountain where Aphrodite was born.

Impossible, impassable winter looms
when the water freezes
and the women stay home.

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

DAY 63 (July 12th, 2017)

After Long Silence

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

DAY 64 (July 13th, 2017)

Art

In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt—a wind to freeze;
Sad patience—joyous energies;
Humility—yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity—reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel—Art.

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

ART

The purpose of art is not the works
but the work–
the unfolding of the artist’s spirit.

The works themselves may be guideposts
for fellow journeymen.

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

DAY 61 (July 10th, 2017)

Consumed in Grace

I first saw God when I was a child, six years of age.
the cheeks of the sun were pale before Him,
and the earth acted as a shy
girl, like me.

Divine light entered my heart from His love
that did never fully wane,

though indeed, dear, I can understand how a person’s
faith can at time flicker,

for what is the mind to do
with something that becomes the mind’s ruin:
a God that consumes us
in His grace.

I have seen what you want;
it is there,

a Beloved of infinite
tenderness.

DAY 62 (July 11th, 2017)

This Place of Abundance

We know nothing until we know everything.

I have no object to defend
for all is of equal value
to me.

I cannot lose anything in this
place of abundance
I found.

If something my heart cherishes
is taken away,

I just say, “Lord, what happened?”

And a hundred more appear.

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

YOUR SCIENCE

There is a science to your presence
    and a practice.

If you quit the classroom now,
how will you know which words to speak
to lift sunset’s curtain?

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

Both of the poems above came from Roger Housden’s for lovers of god everywhere, which you can purchase on Amazon.

DAY 59 (July 8th, 2017)

With rue my heart is laden

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

DAY 60 (July 9th, 2017)

Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break,
      On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
      The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
      That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
      That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
      To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,
      And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break
      At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
      Will never come back to me.

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

I CAUGHT YOU AT SUNSET

I caught you at sunset
after a restful respite.

And you were as you were
a hundred years before
when I nursed you in my heart
and held your fragile head like an unready mother.

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

DAY 57 (July 6th, 2017)

The Last Invocation

At the last, tenderly,

From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks–with a whisper,
Set open the doors O soul.

Tenderly—be not impatient,
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh,
Strong is your hold O love.)

DAY 57 (July 7th, 2017)

Requiescat

Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.

Peace, peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life’s buried here,
Heap earth upon it.

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

TODAY I SAW A HAWK

Today I saw a hawk
pluck a baby sparrow from its nest.
The tiny bird screeched
and the screech echoed through the hills
and filled my heart with sorrow.

To admit helplessness
in the face of this beautiful, terrible world
is to be human
    and mortal.

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!

DAY 55 (July 4th, 2017)

From Macbeth

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

DAY 56 (July 5th, 2017)

From King Lear

Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children,
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engender’d battles ‘gainst a head
So old and white as this! O! O! ’tis foul!

My Commentary

I’ve combined these two into a single poem

WITHOUT YOU

Without you the hour is wasted.
I’ve fallen into this deep well
a million times before
only to tread stygian waters
and swim with tentacled phantoms
that finger my sinking heart.

Lift me out of the quicksand
and into the low hanging clouds
where ivory castles are filled
with better souls.
Count me one among their number
and fashion me wings with which to soar.

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project is a creativity excavation. It’s about unearthing dormant or unrealized creativity by committing to a daily practice everyday for 100 days.
Creativity is a skill. The more we practice, the more skilled we become. Practice takes time. Practice takes commitment. Practice is a radical act in this speeded up world. Through practice, we develop a creative habit. Through habit, we reconnect with and know ourselves again as a creative being.

I started this 100 Day Project on May 11th. My project is to read a poem, and write at least one first-draft stanza inspired by that poem. I’ll post the results at www.bradseverance.com/category/100-day-project/

Enjoy!