White Roses on the Shore: a Long Poem by Supertradmum

White Roses on the Shore: Sea, ships and the bend of the coast

Part One: Ancona-"A star rises in midwinter"

Here, at this Ancona

I am beginning to forget you,

like we forget the histories of towns,

or the names of beautiful harbours.

But, memory, say the ancient holy ones,

can either aid us or be great rocks

in the heart and the mind-who recalls

the Valley of the Brambles, or

the Broken Bridge, or the Land

of the Grand Master. The henge is wrapped

in bureaucracy and Glastonbury’s martyrs

forgotten in silly action and false colours.

“But love, when perfect, is so powerful,

that we forget our own pleasure

in order to please God, whom we love”

wrote the Great Teresa—but what should

we keep in memory and what forget, as

I am forgotten in these walls?  The sea and

the ships bring my heart back in waves to you,

in greys, whites, reflecting my Clairvaux moods.

How can I grieve, like Odysseus on Circe’s isle,

waking out of drugged slumber from the depths

of the Middle Sea? “They say the sea is cold, but

the sea contains the hottest blood of all.”  This sea

holds mine and if I could send Love like ripples

to your shore, like tides to all whom I love, these

would be small white roses, riding on the dark sea,

small tokens lapping up on the far shores….

moving through time and memory, tossed over

the largest heart of all with a memory as old

as the song it sings, but it cannot sing the songs

of purged memory, the nocturnes of this day.

No white prayers come up from the deep, only

the praise of being warm in the cold, cold sea,

under the sail boats, under the rain and mist, the songs

vary outside my door—do those creatures on board

praise Him with persistent longing as the whales

below? What do they remember and what forget?

We have the missa and Word Incarnate, to remind

us of who we are and what we should remember.

Part Two: Telemachus- "They took a terrible vengeance"

Persistent love cannot be false, purified in the

gem polisher, made into some perfect stone

not born of passion, but compassion and pity;

not lust, but a reaching of the heart for completeness.

The young prince’s beard made mater’s decision

strong in pain and promise, being queen true to

her word, watching, weaving, weeping in the night

weary of those burning in envy and hatred.

Greed pitted itself against her age of fast happiness,

she wanted peace;  but, cannot the past be washed away,

the blood purified cleansed by the Blood of Him

Who showed Himself to a tribe unknown to

Telemachus? “Love is as strong as death” could

have been mater’s song as well as the desert groom,

coming up from the sheepfold, coming into the tent

looking for her who was dark and comely. Remembering.

Youth’s ascendency tossed him into the sea of Mnemosyne,

into Menelaus’ grand company, but no wisdom there.

Sailors brought the son back to miracles and a goddess

he did not know.  He became a man, true, unlike others.

Wrapped in the courage of Pallas Athena, he did not see

like another youth of the sheepfold, He, Who broke the Seal of Death,

Ever-Young in the dawn of a foreign day. Did the bearded youth

look south, as I do today, towards the hot lands for courage,

missing the purple sea, far from this cold land of grey mist

this land rimmed by sunsets of orange and duck-egg blue?

Telemachus’ sun set quickly, like yours, fame for a thousand

years without a twilight, but there is no other way

than to be taught by one’s father the ways of war and wooing.

The Hyperborei knew this and blessed their bards, placing them

in the front lines of battle for fame and fortune. Such is the play

of poetry and war, youth and death, marriage and separation.

Part Three: Penelope- "How can I cherish my man?"

Orion’s Belt melts the clouds in this night’s brightness,

but Penelope’s constellation seemed smaller than mine,

this one who strides across the Bay and meets the hot

cliffs of the other lands of deeper waters and older tribes.

Memory and reflection were her gifts of love, she

affectionate emblem of faithfulness, like me, always

monogamous, notoriously faithful beyond waiting days.

A woman’s face grows old while the heart is purified.

She undid her weary work until minds of lust and greed

jackals, predators, circling her and showing themselves

not to be real men of the Middle Sea, but boys . While

she mourned the lion, the whelps played war.

Searching the shore in the grey mist of morning, she

with spring-love in her heart gave in for a moment, but

what we have is greater, stronger, divine Love holding

all in His Heart, Humanity reaching down to earth

like Orion capturing the sea. Penelope’s god was her

husband, but now God becomes the Husband, and even such

a man as her’s striving with Neptune to get home, could

not compare with the Crucified One.

Odysseus of collective memory regained his bride through

suffering, a man purified in water and wind, Poseidon’s

plaything, until humility was learned and earned.

Some of us, like the Poet, are “rememberers”,

the bards with bow and arrow in the line of honour,

passing on the muir Desunt caetera, repetition, memory,

love in names and titles never to be forgotten unless

carved in foreign lands. We forget to our own peril.

The missing have forgotten who they are and were and

what they were supposed to be. Like Adam, thrust out

of the green home, reflecting in nine-hundred years of

remorse, waiting for death, and then the harrowing.

Profane love, like coal, becomes a diamond heart over time

and heat and pressure. The God of History changed all,

for Penelope, for me, renewing hope in the heart

making one young in vision and mastery.

Without memory, there would be no people,

no poem, no bard in the front line of fire;

no children to carry on the reflections of the

mater and pater; nothing but death.

Part 4: Ithaca- "The soul of man"

I would sit quietly in the southern sunlight

and bring you tea, sitting not too close in

the heat of the day, in silence, where the

geraniums bloom under the low sierras

which hid the pain crying out for healing

and completeness. So much has been lost

in this generation lost to the confusion of

each Child of Our Time, like the sailors

stopping up their stubborn ears in order to reach

the wineskin of wind, of curiosity, destroying

years of peace and Odysseus’ domesticity, pushing

out again into the Ionian Sea; none returned but one.

Love and will were separated. We threw away chances,

for completeness, renewable, yes, but not the same, like

the queen’s lost years of childbearing.  But, there is

a greater mercy than Athena’ magic.  The shore is in view.

Ithaca’s rocky coast rises out of the sea a long way

from my cove, but love rides the white waves, regardless

of the temperature of the sea and shore. Odysseus’ soul

was healed before he found Penelope again.  So, climb

up and see the small raft and like the man of the Middle Sea

come home to who you are.  The New God is not Poseidon,

ruler of horses, but the One Who walked on the waves,

proving a new King of the blue sea not far from you.

The ships sail away. My heart stays with the Babe in the Womb

silent in waiting for the fullness of time, and here we have

our being, if we look in the same place for this healing God.

Find the raft hidden beneath the cliff and come home.

Part 5: The Unknown God-"I would know my shadow and my light"

The sons of Telemachus may have seen the sons

of the red-haired man,  in the market place of Athens,

speaking the words of Epimenides for we are indeed,

people of memory; “Men of Athens, I perceive that

in every way you are very religious,” or a varied translation.

Damaris and Dionysius  heard with the blood of Odysseus

calling them home to a different Love, choosing a Known

God faithful to time and memory, the One Who entered history

again and again and again, changing the darkness into dawn.

in a Resurrection some derided. The long song of Homer

created a space for a new mimesis, heart, home, memory, will,

understanding, for new descendants of the wandering man.

The Blood washed away the obstacles, the encumbrances,

the imperfections of the tribe, purging our own hearts so

that we could decide to do something somewhere, somehow.

The Vulnerable God gave us His courage.

Spousal love so praised by Homer and Solomon becomes

the norm for you, for me, for those who care to listen

to the song. Love is now my occupation-let it be yours.

Let the heart follow us home….

Per lumen gloriae fit creatura rationalis  Deiformis

Cum enim aligius intellectus creatus vidit
Deum per essentiam—ipsa essentia Dei fit intelligibilis

infellectus.

The waters by the dry sands will not let my voyage

be delayed—for we are humans, semper idem,

semper paratus waiting for God. And, “seven times

a day, I praise Thee for Thy righteous ordinances.”

Benedict took up the heart and home of the Known God.

“Let me live, that I may praise Thee.” And the God of

time and memory redeemed the grass, redeemed the springs,

redeemed the Middle Sea and this near sea, redeemed place.

Small waves like white roses on the sea gather on the sand.

I would send them out again, in wind and sun to the south,

to lap up on another shore, like small prayers in the dark.

Yield, bend,  gather the signs of memory at your feet in the waters.

copyright, 2013