[Propertalk] St. Martha

[J. A. Frazer Crocker, Jr.]

I don't preach much, due to waning energies and care of a sick wife.
I did notice the chatter about Martha and Mary, and then this morning
came across this poem

Anna Kamienska (1930-1986) is the author, translated from the Polish by 
Grazyna Drabik
and David Curzon in _Astonishments_ 2008, Paraclete Press.  Wikipedia has
an informative entry on her:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Kamie%C5%84ska

In the same volume are quotes from her /Notebooks, /and I put a few of them
after the poem.



SAINT MARTHA
Scolded like an impolite child
stopped in mid gesture
with a wooden spoon in one hand
while a bowl falls from the other
Hidden in the dimness of the pantry
under a chandelier of spider-webs
she stands ashamed in the glow of the kitchen fire
covering her dress with a blue apron
stained by a small dark smudge over her breast
She shades her brow with a starched cloth
In the darkness the barrels pray
patient with the maturing of malt
The truth of oil settles in clay jugs
A tear trembles on a flaxen eyelash
Greatly saddened shadows
are lit only by a humble and apologetic
sliver of green glance
Yet still disobedient she continues to serve
heart in a rush of love
even when her wise sister
slim as a poplar
calmly takes out of her hands
a warm loaf of bread sprinkled with snow


I like Simone Weil's idea that writing is actually the translation of
a text we already carry within us.  That notion makes a heavy task
lighter.
     In fact, though, writing is the backbreaking work of hacking a
footpath, as in a coal mine; in total darkness, beneath the earth.  In
poetry there are moments of illumination.  A streak of light falls in
the dark corridor, then the darkness slams shut overhead once more.
     In prose the darknesses are even thicker, the black clods even
harder.
                 ***
> I pray in words.  I pray in poems.  I want to learn to pray through
> breathing, through dreams and sleeplessness, through love and re-
> nunciation.
>     I pray through snow that falls outside the window.
>     I pray with the tears that do not end

So a little spring prays to the ocean, so the beating heart prays to the
heart of the universe, so the little word prays to the great Logos, so a
dust speck prays to the earth, so the earth prays to the cosmos, so the
one prays to the billion, so human love prays to God's love, so always
prays to eternity, so the frightened beast prays to the forest silence, so
uncertainty prays to beauty itself.
     And all these prayers are heard.
***
Poetry is a foretaste of truth.  It is the vestibule of faith.  It is 
contem-
porary poets who have turned it into smoke and mirrors.
***

In the Psalms I find my own recurring feeling of the abyss.  Again
I feel suspended above this terrifying precipice that, however, is not
nothingness but some kind of fusion of time-space.  And there is no
helping hand.
***

In my 75th year, with limitation increasing, I find her thought and words
oddly comforting.

Frazer




-- 
J. A. Frazer Crocker, Jr.
3541 Ocean View Drive
Florence, OR 97439
541-902-0554
E-mail: jafcjr at charter.net

"Searching for God is the first thing and the last,
  but in between such trouble, and such pain."
        --Jane Kenyon

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