Beyond a Bird, with Gerard Manley Hopkins

What takes you beyond your own concerns, beyond your own feeling, beyond your own life?

For me, once it was simply watching a bird of prey hovering over a reservoir where I had been taken as a child. The bird was a kestrel (see image above), which I knew from an interest I had developed in ornithology, and I was amazed at the way its wings seem to ripple and tremble as it hung in the air, as if magically suspended.

I was transported out of my own self-pity and gloom into a fascination with one of nature’s mysteries. I was taken beyond, into a life beyond my own, a life beyond even human life.

Later in life, I came across this poem, also about a kestrel, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, called “The Windhover” (another name for a kestrel).

It’s not an easy poem to understand at first reading, but I was captivated by the play that Hopkins makes with sounds. You really do need to read the poem out loud (even if quietly!) to hear all the echoes and rhyming sounds. And it is a poem about what is beyond, about revelation.

Hopkins was a Jesuit, and for him the beauty of the bird is a revelation to his heart – a revelation of God, who is “a billion times told lovelier”. He describes the “fire” that “breaks” from God – the fire of the Spirit, the energies of God.

A bird took him, and me, beyond. What takes you beyond?

Here is the full poem:

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
⁠dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
⁠Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstacy! then off, off forth on swing,
⁠As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
⁠Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
⁠Buckle! and the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

⁠No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
⁠Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins/The Windhover – Wikisource, the free online library

To Live Is To Be

To live

Is to be

That is the blossoming

Of a great mystery.

Watching Garden Birds with Emily Dickinson

There’s a poem by Emily Dickinson which I love, which begins like this:

A Bird, came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw

A few weekends ago in the UK, it was “The Big Garden Birdwatch”, organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and I was there, with thousands of others, eagerly waiting to see what would appear on a drizziliy and sleety January Saturday morning.

Every day the birds bless us with their presence. They come, without being asked, and fly overhead, or perch on a wall, or hop around the bushes.

I think Emily Dickinson, the nineteenth century American poet, also loved birds, because in another poem she describes Hope as a bird:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

It makes life good for me when I notice our beautiful bird life in around Shrewsbury. We see red kites, dippers, kingfishers…the list goes on.

Their gift of flight is something we can only achieve by technology. Emily Dickinson’s poem about birds ends with this beautiful description of flying:

Then he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home –

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam

You can read the two poems referred to in this post by following these links:

‘A Bird Came Down The Walk’

‘Hope Is The Thing With Feathers On‘

Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay

Raindrops, and the “Little World Made Cunningly” of John Donne

“I am a little world made cunningly”
John Donne

The other day it was raining in Shrewsbury, and I as I approached my bedroom window my eye was caught by something extraordinary.

Not by the view over the houses on the other side of the street towards the trees of the nearby nature reserve of Rea Brook, not by the dismal grey skies, but by the tiny water droplets clinging to the window pane.

Each was “a little world made cunningly“.

This wonderful phrase comes from a poem by John Donne which begins like this:

I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements and an angelic sprite
John Donne, ‘Holy Sonnets’

John Donne saw in himself “a little world”, a worthy, valuable existence, an existence with the potential for good. He saw in himself “sprite” (not the fizzy drink!) – we would say “spirit” today. It is true that he also saw in himself conflict, and if you are interested in this, you can read the whole poem here.

In each raindrop, I saw the same image of the road reflected, each time in a slightly different way. It was like an infinity of different perspectives that infinitely expanded the view from my own eyes.

A day that had appeared so grey and empty of interest suddenly seized me with interest. I lived in a “world made cunningly“.

Wouldn’t life be good if we could adopt this vision of John Donne’s more frequently, and see “a little world made cunningly” in everyone we meet and in everything we see?

Singing for Hope with Thomas Hardy

In the darkness of a January morning in Shropshire I heard a song thrush calling.

It’s easy to recognise because of its beautiful and strong repetitive song.

You can listen to its song here.

There’s a great poem by Thomas Hardy called ‘The Darkling Thrush’, which I always think about in the darkness December and January, which ends like this:

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.
~
So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.
from ‘The Darkling Thrush’ by Thomas Hardy

Well, there can sometimes seem “so little cause…written on terrestrial things” for hope at the moment. And yet despite the darkness, even in the darkness, we still can find things to appreciate and enjoy.

Many psychologists recommend keeping a Gratitude Journal to help us focus on the good things in life. And maybe it makes Lif4Gd if we can manage to stay focused on moments of joy whilst also accepting the suffering around us.

See if you can notice a few things that bring you joy today. It’s a great discipline to try to find a few things every day.

If you would like to read the full version of Thomas Hardy’s poem, it is available here.

As If Life Blossomed Happily

It’s nearly December, yet the cherry tree nearby is in full blossom. Shrewsbury is a beautiful place anyway, but this unseasonal touch of beauty, has helped add some cheer to gloomy November days, and remind me of the good in life.

Outside my window

The blossoming

Of the cherry tree

In bleak November

As if there was

No pandemic of grief

As if life blossomed

Happily.

The cherry tree, blossoming in Shrewsbury in November

What is Lif4Gd?

What makes life good for you?

And how can we all live life, for good?

Lif4Gd seeks to explore these questions.

I use personal experiences, and literature from the past, to explore life, and to explore what is good.

I am a writer, and I live in Shrewsbury in Shropshire, in the Midlands, in the UK.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

If you are interested in reading more of my writing, I invite you to visit Floweringpoverello.wordpress.com.

I hope you enjoy exploring Lif4Gd.

Journeying to Meaning with Wilfred Owen

Where did you begin your life journey? This doesn’t just mean “Where were you born” – it means where did you start to discover meaning in your life? This poem called “Futility” by Wilfred Owen raises some profound questions…

Futility

Move him into the sun—

Gently its touch awoke him once,

At home, whispering of fields half-sown.

Always it woke him, even in France,

Until this morning and this snow.

If anything might rouse him now

The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds—

Woke once the clays of a cold star.

Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides

Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth’s sleep at all?

Wilfred Owen lived locally to me, in Shrewsbury, and it’s a sad poem, influenced by his terrible experiences of fighting in the First World War. It raises questions about the purpose and meaning of life for soldiers trying to survive in unbearable conditions.

But if we are to have Lif4Gd…then one of things we can explore in our life journey is purpose and meaning:

The beginning of life

Is not at first cry

But when the soul

Begins to know why

And moves in faith

That the purpose

And mission

Are beyond the present

In a future unseen

And a destiny.

Some Questions to Ponder

Are there writers that mean a lot to you? Maybe writers that live locally to you, or writers that have strongly influenced your life journey?
How do you explore your life’s purpose and meaning?

You might like to leave a comment if you’ve found this interesting.

Best wishes,

Michael

Grow Meaning, Joy, Perspective

Grow

Because life, all of life, is about growing.

Think about a seed growing into a plant. Or the journey of a human being from conception to birth to childhood to adulthood.

To live is to grow.

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Meaning

Because meaning is related to valuing. Every person alive feels their meaning as they feel valued by others, or they feel valued by God.

Life also has meaning as we are affected emotionally.

To live is to discover more and more meaning. The meaning of my life. The meaning of the lives of others. The meaning of existence and the universe. The meaning of God.

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Joy

Because to live is to experience happiness and joy as well as sadness and pain.

Joy is created by an infinite variety of causes. Other people, a pleasurable sensation, music, a moment of beauty. Joy brings growth and meaning to life.

To live is to experience joy.

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Perspective

Because perspective is changeable. At one moment, the smallest thing is a mountain and a monster; later we laugh and realise how we had the wrong perspective.

Perspective is like faith. In who and what do we believe and trust, and how do these primordial commitments shape our understanding, our decisions, our existence?

Lif4Gd is to choose certain perspectives to return to in order to grow, experience joy and find meaning in life.

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Opportunity Incarnated

Pilgrims

From many lands

They came

To a place of silence

Where symbols

Spoke in stone

And sunlight

Coloured the windows

With grace

And the space

Created

By their pilgrimage

Was an opportunity

For heaven

To be incarnated

In a human heart.

Inspired by Shrewsbury Abbey