GLORY THAT OOZES AND SEEPS

“The heavens declare the glory of God;

The skies proclaim the work of His hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

 Night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language

Where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,

Their words to the ends of the world.”

Psalm 19:1-4

Once I was a mean Freshman English teacher who made her students memorize poetry.  One of the poets I pushed the most was Gerard Manley Hopkins, a nineteenth-century Jesuit priest. His poetry reveals his intense love for nature, obviously inspired by his ravenous hunger for God, and is characterized by a delightfully unique and highly innovative structure.  I love his subtlety: he could fashion a bunch of words into an intricately stylized sonnet without letting his readers ever know he had accomplished such a literary feat until one decided to take it apart and analyze its meter.  That, to me, is true humility! It’s like an opera diva who is totally contented to sing in her shower. To express his feelings about the pervasiveness of God’s glory, he used words like “bleared,” “smeared,” “oozed,” and “smudged”—oddly ordinary, obliquely poetic, and some might even call too earthy or vulgar.  To me they were poignantly aromatic, spicy, tantalizing, and just plain delicious.

            He couldn’t help it! He was eaten up with revealing God’s handiwork.  I really get that because since I was just a little girl, I have loved reading and writing poetry.  I am magnetically drawn to the Psalms and next to Jesus, I love David above all other men in the Bible.

            When earth turns a page and suddenly changes chapters, I can hardly contain myself.  I dream about poetry and wake up spouting rhythm and rhyme.  I can hardly finish brushing my teeth before I grab the nearest scrap of paper and start scribbling.

Today is October 1, and it happened again. On my porch, drinking my coffee—

here came a parade of words to invade my devotional time. Literarily, they are nothing special; I have written dozens of others that I had rather share with you.  But I was so glad to remember that I am a poet who, like Hopkins and David, can’t help myself.  It’s been a long, hot, dry spell; I had begun to think I had lost the feel.  So, I offer you with Hopkinesque humility, my verses welcoming autumn.

The sun has tinted the shadowed sky blue;

Acorns clatter down tin roofs.

There’s no place else I’d rather be

In this world but right here, in truth.

A hummingbird sips as the train rumbles by;

Summer’s pink blossoms hang on.

My inner man is bathed in the Word

That I feasted upon at dawn.

A squirrel hides his treasures for winter;

In the pasture black mama cow bellows.

Autumn silently surrounds me

Preparing its oranges and yellows.

Stifling August is finally a memory;

Blustery gales yet to come.

While birdsong and blanket on the porch in October

Threaten to make me a bum!

            Hopkins was right.  God’s glory oozes out, smears itself everywhere.  God is so stuffed with Glory that it constantly seeps out of all creation: out of the autumn trees in the gypsy adornment of fiery foliage; out of the birds in pied feathers and lilting song; out of the bare, brown dirt in pink and purple petals; out of me in poetry; out of you in music.