Friday, April 22, 2011

we call this Friday good...

The sky is overcast, the weather cold, and a decade of Catholicism still makes me want to be in settings of candlelight and arched ceilings getting meditative and such on days like these, because part of my rhythm is still in tune with a liturgical calendar, though like a Christmas & Easter celebrant, I gave up nothing for Lent and forgot that most Good Friday services are happening right now as opposed to when I get off of work.

"You look like you're in the spirit of the day" someone says, and I guess I do with the black dress-as-tunic, the probably-too-dangly-for-work cross earrings found at a yard sale, but I've been laughing too much to give off any air of gothicity, thanks to Kynge's Brew and the inside jokerye of the peonage. Even in my darkest nights of the soul, there is still a sense of light and hope that sustains me through the many times where things seem too bleak and sucky to keep on living.




O how great is the kindness of the
Savior,
who sets all free
through His incarnation
which divinity breathed out,
unbound by sin.
And thus those garments
are cleansed
by the greatest grief.




Reposted as appropriate. Eliot once more...

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood -
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/restoring-the-senses/

Randal Graves said...

Even us pagans of distinction dig the von Bingen, though I think workplace guffawery was due less to the hallucinatory effects of inside jokery than the blood of your enemies. Rich, tasty courage, and all that.

Stop posting good verse.

that girl said...

@dmf,
this is awesome. It was amazing how many spiritual things made sense as I watched seeds germinate and things grow and blossom.

@Randal,
so that wasn't Kynge's Brewe in the Mug of Madness/Pre-med Cranium?

If only my verse was that good. At least the words of others are more worth reading than my terrible angstastic ramblings. I have to make some concession to quality.

Randal Graves said...

Verily, 'twas not! I think that's why I stopped posting my crap, so bloody awful compared to talented jerks like Eliot or Lux. That said, we members of the unwashed will be the judge of worthiness or not, I think it's a law or something.