Wondrous Words

Did you know that I wanted to be a librarian when I was little? Books have always been so dear to my heart. A job that combines reading books with ministering to teens in Cambodia is more of a dream come true than I can tell you.

Other types of literature, though, I’m just now starting to appreciate. I never read anything Greek besides “The Odyssey” in high school, so I’ve had to catch up this year in teaching various myths and a version of “The Iliad.” It’s been neat to see many of my students come in with FAR more passion for Greek literature than I ever had before this year.

Likewise, it’s not that I hated poetry in school, but none from high school stand out to me as much as some I’ve read since then. I’ve really found some treasures this year.

If you’re gagging right now at what a nerd I am, skip this post. Otherwise, read on for some wondrous words.

Two People Be Like – Eve Merriam
(I read this with Grade 7)

That man
stuck in traffic
not pounding his fists against the steering wheel
not trying to shift to the next lane
just
using the time
for a slow steady grin
of remembering
all the good unstuck times

and that woman
clerking in the supermarket
at rush hour
bagging bottles and cartons and boxes and jars and cans
punching it all out
slapping it all along
and leveling a smile
at everyone in the line.

I wish they were married to each other.

Maybe it’s better they’re not,
so they can pass their sweet harmony
around.

Hurrahing in Harvest – Gerard Manley Hopkins
(I read this with Brit Lit)

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! What lovely behavior
Of silk-sack clouds! Has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift molded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Savior;
And, éyes, héart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic – as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet! –
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.