A strange grace of gratitude

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F a c e   T i m e

Folly Beach

Charleston, South Carolina

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Grief was to go out, away

From this bedside of cliffs and shells,

Awakings in mornings to white-ragged manes

Hoisting themselves up over rocks

And the white mother of foam sped

In a thickened broth curdled white

Back to the throngs of the oncoming rigors.

Grief was just in the having

Of so much heart pulse gone out and away

Into absence and the spent shadow

Of what ran from our fingers as ripples

Of shadow over the sand and what eluded

In a bending of mirrors the tipped tints and reflections

And was just so much running down the packed sands'

Mile-wide blondness of bird-tracked floor.

Was to behold in leaving, as if for the first time,

The fair-weathered crown of the mole

And the light chained to the grass-scattered peak.

Between the gates of the bullet-round rocks

Was to pluck up by the roots the salt hay

Where the seaweed lay wine red

And the foam was combed with gushed red

Was to leave carrying sealed in some envelope

Commandments instructing through leagues down

Where all must be seen through the hidden,

Through shade upon shade, down through layers,

Where all must be seen suspended in the stilled inner scene,

And the word must guard the deed and the inner word

Must not spill its center of smoke

Or break out from the windows of music

Playing deep in the night no one may arrive to

While you come back to your life

In a strange grace of gratitude,

Loving the least and most meagre

Of the held to, the unchosen given,

For here stand the encircling premises

By which don't they leap from, the distances?

And even as in the beat of the running foam

The enhalting power of the thing

Crowding the mind, pouring over the eyes?

Is it in the poignancy of tests

That we strike fire at the source,

At farewell that we clasp what we know,

And as if it were dying, run to embrace

Our life lying out there, misadventured, abstruse,

In the great wedge of light beamed forth --

Like messengers sallying out

To your "I see! I see!" bearing a scroll

On which the word is almost decipherable.

~Jean Garrigue (1914-1972)~

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I should be rich to be so poor

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B r o k e n

Mount Hermon Cemetery

Pelion, South Carolina

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The last light has gone out of the world, except

This moonlight lying on the grass like frost

Beyond the brink of the tall elm's shadow,

It is as if everything else had slept

Many an age, unforgotten and lost --

The men that were, the things done, long ago,

All I have thought; and but the moon and I

Live yet and here stand idle over a grave

Where all is buried. Both have liberty

To dream what we could do if we were free

To do some thing we had desired long,

The moon and I. There's none less free than who

Does nothing and has nothing else to do,

Being free only for what is not to his mind,

And nothing is to his mind. If every hour

Like this one passing that I have spent among

The wiser others when I have forgot

To wonder whether I was free or not,

Were piled before me, and not lost behind,

And I could take and carry them away

I should be rich; or if I had the power

To wipe out every one and not again

Regret, I should be rich to be so poor.

And yet I still am half in love with pain,

With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth,

With things that have an end, with life and earth,

And this moon that leaves me dark within the door.

~Edward Thomas (1878-1917)~

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Thine shall the glory be

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T e n d e r l y

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

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King of my life I crown Thee now

Thine shall the glory be

Lest I forget Thy thorn-crown'd brow

Lead me to Calvary

Lest I forget Gethsemane

Lest I forget Thine agony

Lest I forget Thy love for me

Lead me to Calvary

Show me the tomb where Thou wast laid

Tenderly mourned and wept

Angels in robes of light arrayed

Guarded Thee whilst Thou slept

Let me like Mary, through the gloom

Come with a gift to Thee

Show to me now the empty tomb

Lead me to Calvary

May I be willing, Lord, to bear

Daily my cross for Thee

Even Thy cup of grief to share

Thou hast borne all for me

Lest I forget Gethsemane

Lest I forget Thine agony

Lest I forget Thy love for me

Lead me to Calvary

~Jennie Evelyn Hussey (1874-1958)~

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Hunt down love together

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A n g e l s   D o   D a n c e

Aimwell Cemetery

Ridgeway, South Carolina

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If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf,

Our lives would grow together

In sad or singing weather,

Blown fields or flowerful closes,

Green pleasure or gray grief;

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf.

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune,

With double sound and single

Delight our lips would mingle,

With kisses glad as birds are

That get sweet rain at noon;

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune.

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death,

We'd shine and snow together

Ere March made sweet the weather

With daffodil and starling

And hours of fruitful breath;

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death.

If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy,

We'd play for lives and seasons

With loving looks and treasons

And tears of night and morrow

And laughs of maid and boy;

If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy.

If you were April's lady,

And I were lord in May,

We'd throw with leaves for hours

And draw for days with flowers,

Till day like night were shady

And night were bright like day;

If you were April's lady,

And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain,

We'd hunt down love together,

Pluck out his flying feather,

And teach his feet a measure,

And find his mouth a rein;

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain.

~Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)~

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Love is God's own antidote

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L - O - V - E

Christie's Inc.

New York City

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Folk need a lot of loving in the morning;

The day is all before, with cares beset --

The cares we know, and they that give no warning;

For love is God's own antidote for fret.

Folk need a heap of loving at the noontime --

In the battle lull, the moment snatched from strife --

Halfway between the waking and the croon time,

While bickering and worriment are rife.

Folk hunger so for loving at the nighttime,

When wearily they take them home to rest --

At slumber song and turning-out-the-light time --

Of all the times for loving, that's the best.

Folk want a lot of loving every minute --

The sympathy of others and their smile!

Till life's end, from the moment they begin it,

Folks need a lot of loving all the while.

~Strickland Gillilan (1869-1954)~

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Happy Valentine's Day

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