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Emergent Occasions
“And even angels, whose home is heaven, and who are
winged too, yet had a ladder to go to heaven by steps.”
—John Donne, Meditation II, Emergent Occasions
__Affliction is a sea, a sink,
__A place that begs the soul to think.
__As treasure, sick-bed souvenirs,
__Woe wets our ashes, gilds our tears.
____Grave sickness digs our earth,
Plants death—sends soil and heaven falling together
____Tangling rise and tether.
Most nights we copy death, measuring our worth
By oilless lamps, sleeping complacently.
But with the embers of disease, we see
The circumstance of our emergency.
__Mankind, all earth and dust, is fixed
__To misery. We’re merged and mixed
__And gathered, isles to continent,
__And kept, so centered, on ascent.
____Do dusty pilgrim feet
Remind us that we’re walking bags of water,
____Woe-wrung and carried farther
West as we quest for East? Toiling, we meet
Our forma, earthen clay, dirt dipped in sea
And muddied step by step, dried by degree,
But pliable with this sweeping misery.
__Come mortal moment, shake my soul,
__Come up and out and rise, come toll
__My bells, reverberate my time
__With vigor, spur me forth to climb.
____As even angels, winged,
Have ladders, going step by step to heaven,
____Help me, enlightened leaven,
To lift my gaze. Restore my sight and bring
Me, wingless, to the highest rung to see
Night’s mineral fleck, soul’s osseous esprit
Reflecting heaven’s light, stars on the sea.
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Poet’s Note: This poem uses the form found in Donne’s “The Relic,” (4a, 4a, 4b, 4b, 3c, 5d, 3d, 4c, 5e, 5e, 5e). The content is responding to Donne’s essay titled, “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.” It has a stanza for meditation, discourse, and prayer (to match the structure of Donne’s essay).
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Maura H. Harrison is a writer, photographer, and fiber artist from Fredericksburg, VA. She is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. Her works have appeared in Dappled Things, Ekstasis Magazine, Amethyst Review, Solum Journal, Heart of Flesh Literary Magazine, Trampoline, Clayjar Review, and others.
Maura, coming to your poem, I’d just re-read Thomas Campion’s classic poem “Now Winter Nights Enlarge” on poets.org, and the contrast is striking. Campion writes of all the joys one can find while holed up by the fire in one’s castle during a winter storm – the special ways of frittering away ones time in cold seasons – and I love fireside chats and card games as much as the next person – but your “embers of disease” and “circumstance of emergency” are coming for us all, and we do well to remember that we’ll be gathered “isles to continent” and that real happiness and peace lie in turning our eyes toward the Father, in seeking His grace and focusing on that heavenly staircase!
Jeremiah,
thank you for your comment. I will go read Campion’s poem now!
–Maura
This is both a tribute to Donne’s art, and an expression of the poet’s formidable verbal and creative powers.
The figurative language here is effective not just in itself, but also as clearly an echo of the Metaphysical Poets. “Night’s mineral fleck, soul’s osseous esprit” is a striking line, as are the words “walking bags of water / Woe-wrung…” And three eleven-line stanzas with a complicated rhyme scheme show a solid ability to sustain a serious and conscious recollection of an older poetic style.
This is extremely impressive work.
Joseph,
gosh, thank you for your kind reply!
–Maura
Thanks, Maura, for providing the note that places your poem in literary historical context. Your work is admirable, both in its classical process of imitation and in the original qualities of your creation. And you’ve done what’s best to impress the reader of such a piece, by saving the finest lines for last. I notice the “prayer” stanza is directly addressed to the “mortal moment” of death–requesting an elevating passage. This is an unusual procedure, but it nods to the general contemporary disbelief in a personal God, while allowing readers to suppose such a belief, unspecified in kind, may underlie the speaker’s invocation. It thus allows the speaker to shield the depths of his identity, and to maintain dignity while imagining that ultimate mortal moment through beautiful religious imagery. Again, unusual, in avoiding confessional agony and private allusions that might render the poem less universal.
Margaret,
thank you for your feedback and comments!