veteran’s park is a parcel of land that used to be lake michigan, until landfill was put in. now we have nice museums and trails and marinas and whatnot.
the birds love it too, and so does the ice.
a.
a riprap morning
ice heaving
on milwaukee bay
b.
a beak silhouette
liquid dive
merganser on lake
c.
common goldeneyes
thrusting heads
paddling along
for all those who keep the season of holy fasting we call “lent” in english (or those who are interested in world religions for whatever reason), i’ve got a new essay out in the benedictine magazine spirit & life.
it’s based on an interaction i had with some other guys here in milwaukee last year as well as some studying of the nature of christian atonement i did years and years ago now (when i first read william langland’s tremendous poem, piers plowman—read piers if you haven’t!).
all i’ll say here is that the essay involves the devil as a monstrous fish and the holy cross as a tricky hook. enjoy!
for any readers out there who are interested in monastic spirituality, i’ve got a new essay up at macrina magazine on devotion to the sacred humanity of christ and its monastic origins.
lots of good work being done over at macrina, so take a look around if you have an interest.
very much on the coattails of this weekend’s publication, i’ve got two new poems out in the february issue of the journal better than starbucks.
a free verse meditation on fairy parental duties is here, while a prose-poem cri de coeur on a long-ago night in boulder, co is here.
there’s much to read throughout the issue, with a number of twitter-community folks on the formal poetry page whom i respect a great deal—check them out too if you can.
happy february!
the bureaucratically-named north mendota wildlife area, prairie unit is a 63-acre prairie restoration close to the northwestern shore of lake mendota, sandwiched between governor nelson state park and holy wisdom monastery (an ecumenical benedictine community) along cty highway m.
this is one of those natural areas that i am so grateful for and that also can be hard to be in at the same time. it’s fantastic that the good work of preservation is being done here, yet one also sees the new development with its box stores, massive houses, and roads named after the habitats destroyed in order to build (prairie kettle road etc.) immediately adjacent. it’s not the adjacency that bothers me, as if natural areas should be free of human activity and building (cronon taught us how problematic the very idea of “wilderness” is, and would that all human development retained prairies etc. right nearby!), but that clearly the area was prairie too or could have been restored just as readily as the parcel that was.
anyhow, it was the day of our only lasting snow so far this winter here in southern wisconsin, and my brother and i made the most of it. refreshing to visit in the brisk yet desolate winter air and sun, but looking forward to visiting in summer’s height too.
a.
burred balls and seedpods
reaching out
to subdivisions
b.
all this wonderful
tangled mess—
cellulose soil-helm***
(***couldn’t help but laugh out loud and announce my “brilliant” line reminiscent of old english half-lines to my brother after i wrote the last line of this one…)
gibraltar rock is a flat-topped butte made of platteville-galena dolomite and st. peter sandstone. it’s an isolated part of the magnesian escarpment, one of three north-south running escarpments in wisconsin. sandy soil, a prairie on the way up, red oaks and lindens, red cedars up at the top. beautiful dolomite, scalloped and lichenized abounding.
just a perfect upper-midwest fall day for encountering this butte and its many inhabitants. dreamy in the most active and vibrant way.
a.
the salidago
sun bathing
on magnesian flat
b.
baby cedar boughs
under cloud
making plateau way
c.
gnarling bark above
the abyss—
life on the cliff-face
d.
gentle cedar curves
nestling
the magnesium
if you made it this far: i noticed this desiccated forb with just an arresting form on the way up but didn’t have the camera. made a note to catch an image on the way back down and found it no problem b/c it stood out so much. don’t even know what it is, and don’t really care. it was a revelation.
also, this little pinecone was sitting on the edge of the cliff, just a perfect, understated still life. no staging required.
I’m very grateful to Macrina Magazine for accepting what is a quite a seriously mixed bag of poems—I think it shows a real willingness to experiment and be open to lots of different ways of coming at poetry. You can read them here, and stick around to read other stuff on the site.
In their varied ways, the set together says a lot about what I find valuable in life. There are some notes on the page, but: the first is a translation of an Old English poem that is set into an anonymous translator’s rendering of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae, that features Weland the Smith; the second is a “tour poem” of a nature preserve in Sauk County, Wisconsin; and the third is an imitation poem in honor of the Mazatec curandera Maria Sabina set at a roadside shrine to the Sacred Heart in Door County, Wisconsin. Something for everyone! 🙂
I had the distinct privilege yesterday of having a conversation with Abbot Primate Gregory J. Polan, OSB and Rachel McKendree of Paraclete Press about the practice and virtues of the Divine Office (also known as the Liturgy of the Hours) and my new book, The Saint Benedict Prayer Book.
We discussed a bit of the history but more so the vision of reality that is conveyed by the performance of the Hours, why it matters as a form of prayer in the world today and how it shapes who we are. It was a fabulous discussion with much wisdom from Abbot Primate Gregory.
If you have an interest, you can watch the full conversation here, and you can pick a copy of the book here.
Pax et Bonum!
I’ve come back from vacation to find my translation of a Latin poem on St. Benedict in the latest print issue of Spirit & Life, the magazine that the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration publish every couple months.
It’s a middle-length poem by a monk named Mark of Monte Cassino, and it’s the earliest attestation we have of St. Benedict’s existence—in plenty of time for his feast day on July 11th. The Latin is set in elegiac couplets, and I’ve translated them into alternating 12-syllable and 10-syllable lines modeled on French syllabic lines.
So, if you’re interested in arcane Benedictine texts (as you know I am), have a read here and a listen below if you like! Also: you can sign up for a free subscription to the magazine here.
In celebration of all things Benedictine and in the wake of The Saint Benedict Prayer Book coming out, Paraclete has also recently posted a brief life and translations of prayers I’ve written up on the first (modern) Benedictine oblate to be beatified, Blessed Itala Mela.
If you have an interest in Benedictine history, the liturgy, or arcane mystics that you didn’t even know were a thing, I hope you check it out, and support Paraclete while you’re at it if you’re able to.
Pax
Jacob Riyeff 