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12/24/2016 MARY ~ BERTOLT BRECHT Mary
The night when she first gave birth Had been cold. But in later years She quite forgot The frost in the dingy beams and the smoking stove And the spasms of the afterbirth towards morning. But above all she forgot the bitter shame Common among the poor Of having no privacy. That was the main reason Why in later years it became a holiday for all To take part in. The shepherds’ coarse chatter fell silent. Later they turned into the Kings of the story. The wind, which was very cold Turned into the singing of angels. Of the hole in the roof that let in the frost nothing remained But the star that peered through it. All this was due to the vision of her son, who was easy Fond of singing Surrounded himself with poor folk And was in the habit of mixing with kings And of seeing a star above his head at night-time. — Bertolt Brecht 11/12/2016 eros by kevin mcgrath
10/15/2016 DHARMA RAIN
9/24/2016 BIRD LIGHtBIRD LIGHT by Elizabeth Cohen
Rainer Maria Rilke, nearly 100 years ago ended the first stanza of the Duino Elegies–First Elegy, with this verse. "Throw the emptiness out of your arms to add to the spaces we breathe; maybe the birds will feel the expansion of air, in more intimate flight.”
In BIRD LIGHT, Elizabeth Cohen captures this “more intimate flight” and creates a new poetic language of healing and transformation. She deftly weaves together images of birds and nature that parallel life–changing events. “It happened to me. The Robin Redbreast / the mud swallows on the porch / egrets in the field…the polysyllabic jays / the velvet scrimshaw of my nights etched with bats / all replaced by infinite changeable things / Everyone, everywhere, sleeping with television.” In an elegant and earthly voice, she speaks to us of hidden loss and sorrow, softened by joy and love and living a vibrant life. We are drawn into the conversation in delightful ways, and renewed by a promise healing. ~ Ron Starbuck
9/9/2016 BEARING THE CAST ~ skip renker BEARING THE CASTSAINT JULIAN PRESS is excited to announce that in the spring of 2017, we will be publishing BEARING THE CAST, a new book of poems by Skip Renker. Many of the poems in Bearing the Cast evoke rivers, real and imagined, where “love undisguised on the waters” can be difficult to bear. By turns wondering, skeptical, humorous, and grateful, these poems seek the sources of paradox: stillness and motion, time and the Divine, love and death, silence and the sounds of owls, horses, trout rising to feed. They explore a world that contains both “dragonflies with side-mounted eyes, impersonal and voracious” as well as barefoot seekers at “the doors of the holy.” These poems urge us to bear, even savor, the world’s cast. Skip Renker has degrees from Notre Dame and Duke and an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. His poems have appeared in California Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Small Brushes, Spirit First, and numerous other publications, as well as the Atlanta Review, Passages North, and Allegheny River anthologies. He’s published two chapbooks, Birds of Passage (Delta Press), and Sifting the Visible (Mayapple Press), and he conducts workshops and college classes in meditation and writing. Skip’s a father and grandfather, and lives with his wife Julia Fogarty in Midland, MI.  you may do this in any moment of any day as a prayer as a meditation simply close your eyes and imagine him on that holy night in that upper room where he first took the bread and gave thanks broke it and offered it to his followers asking them to partake of this my body given for you this day, as a remembrance and something more then he took the cup and gave thanks asking them to drink of it often the Cup of Christ a new testament found in my blood a forgiveness do this, he asked in remembrance me as a means of grace as an everlasting celebration held here, now with him, his real and sustaining presence calling us into relationship with him and with all creation with you every hour of every day is it any wonder that angels and archangels fall silent in this moment then sing alleluias without end IN his work and writing, theologian Paul F. Knitter tells, us that understanding God through relationships is critical and that the source and power of our relationships is driven by the presence of the "Holy Spirit." The importance of this concept is summarized by this: "behind and within all the different images and symbols, Christians use for God; Creator, Father (Abba), Redeemer, Word, Spirit, - the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships.” 1 Saint Julian Press Poem Ron Starbuck © 2016 1. Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, Paul F. Knitter, Chapter 1, Nirvana and God the Transcendent Other, pages 14-23. Publisher: Oneworld Publications (July 25, 2009) ISBN-10: 1851686738 * ISBN-13: 978-1851686735 Paperback: 336 THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT BEING AN EPISCOPALIAN
If you do not own an interactive device the recorded poems can be found on this page below.
SAINT JULIAN PRESS RECORDINGS ~ Copyright 2016 SAINT JULIAN PRESS COPYRIGHT 2016 
TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH MIDTOWN HOUSTON
There Is Something About Being an Episcopalian
There Is Something About Being an Episcopalian, is a poetic and literary celebration of life within any sacred community, life among our families, friends, and neighbors.
Each poem is offered in the hope that we may find a new life and a new creation in serving God as the Ultimate Divine Mystery, humanity, our sacred and social communities, and welcoming the unknown stranger, while practicing humankind's ancient traditions of true hospitality and acceptance. These poems are a profound calling to engage in a deeper and more open dialogue, not only across the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion, but within and throughout Christianity and all the great faiths of humankind. All of humanity's sacred writings, rites, literature, and liturgy of humankind are inspired poetry. So that, through literature, we might transform our perceptions from east to west and north to south, and open the way to a greater understanding between faiths and spiritual traditions. This is certainly something, which a fearful world needs desperately today and tomorrow. As my friend, theologian Paul F. Knitter once wrote in a sermon, quoting Christian theologian, John B. Cobb, "Jesus is the way, that is open to other ways." "Jesus is the way that is open to other ways. Jesus is not the way that excludes, overpowers, demeans other ways; rather he is the way that opens us to, connects us with, calls us to relate to other ways in a process that can best be described as 'dialogue'." In his book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh's, Buddhist teachings on "interbeing," Paul F. Knitter tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical and that the source and power of our relationships is driven by the presence of the "Holy Spirit." The importance of this concept is summarized by this: "behind and within all the different images and symbols, Christians use for God; Creator, Father (Abba), Redeemer, Word, Spirit, - the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships." If Christians were to reframe or to re-imagine the message of the Gospel for the Twenty-First Century, the "Good News" of the Gospel, I believe that this would be a message that calls all of us into a deeper understanding of the Divine Mystery, which is to be found in human relations. New life enriching and life affirming relationships we discover through an interfaith dialogue that is radically open, radically inclusive, and grounded in the historical and orthodox tradition within the church. We discover this also in the Great Commission, which Christ gave to his Disciples and to all Christendom. These poems arise out of my own worldview, personal faith, and spiritual practices, and from within an ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. They ask and encourage the reader to engage in such a radical openness, not only within their own faith and traditions, but with other faiths too. As a Christian and as an Episcopalian, I want to use the language and symbols that I know and love so well, and offer that what is drawing us together is the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who is actively at work within the world in many forms and instances, across many faiths, in words both familiar and unfamiliar. And to recognize that there are many interconnections; however, you may imagine the Spirit at work within the world, calling us into a relationship with one another and into the fullness of our humanity. God's Holy Spirit, who helps us to actualize our fullest potential within life, to know and be known, to love and be loved, and who accepts us unconditionally: to know God as and through love. A poet's work is to help expanded humanity's literary and cultural dialogue, and to magnify and transform our human perceptions. We do so by engaging new forms and symbols and vocabulary. We create new languages describing the experience of life. We offer words, and in our imaginations try our best to capture the "ineffable and intangible - tongues of angels and heaven." This book is a poetic celebration of life and humanity through a literary language as something sacred, symbolic, and metaphorical, as fingers pointing at the moon, pointing from the unfathomable silence within towards the Divine Mystery of creation. "Out of this silence the poet within conceives unknown - unheard languages of the spirit, new words and verses flowing out unhindered as a blessing." Many Blessings, Saint Julian Press Ron Starbuck NOTES
 I BELIEVE LORD Jesus said to him, “If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” - Mark 9:23-25 (NRSV) In any good story told or read, even watched; the storyteller depends upon the reader to suspend their sense of disbelief. We do this with books, movies, and digital media. When was the last time you enjoyed a really good book or movie, like the latest Star Wars, Captain America, or Marvel Comics movie? In 1817 the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative. It is another type of literary device. Most of us have read or seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy and enjoyed those stories for exactly what they are, a wonderful, wonder filled fantasy adventure. I have read them ten times or more; I’ve lost count. We enter the story completely, so engrossed and involved in the tale. It becomes true for us. The people, places, and time are real. We live in Middle Earth; we eat in Middle Earth; we dream in Middle Earth; we become the characters in the story, and we walk away from our experience much richer. J.R.R. Tolkien knew these stories would capture our imagination. He knew they would transcend belief and unbelief, and we would enter them in magical ways. Middle Earth fills our minds with myth, mystery, metaphor, allegory, life lessons, spiritual and human truths, and esoteric qualities that point us towards a greater mystery dwelling within and a part of us. The stories make us wonder and stretch our imaginations. They expand our imaginations. And we discover a great value in this wonderment that takes us beyond, in letting our imaginations move us beyond a point, to a new knowingness. It does not matter if the story is factual or not, or made up from someone’s imagination. We enter the story and are possessed and transformed by a deeper truth that like a Buddhist or Hindu Sūtra, threads its way all through the story. We understand intuitively that the story does not need to be factual, or literally true, for it to have this value, or to unveil and reveal a divine truth. The story becomes a revelation, an epiphany, an advent, a new creation, a quality that all great literature contains. When well-written and highly imaginative, such stories transform and transcend, unveiling a deeper truth. Poetry and stories of sacred literature from many faiths, fill us with heroic wisdom. They fill us with wonder, and provide an inward view as contemplative poets, thoughtful, pensive, meditative, reflective. Ah, but is it also something more too, the poet within and my imagination wonders? Is it part of the Divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit, actively at work within the world, inspiring us? I think that it is, certainly. However, you may understand the Spirit at work in your own life. The word inspired means to be: aroused, animated, or imbued with the spirit to do something, by or as if by supernatural or divine influence: an inspired poet or storyteller. J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were certainly inspired storytellers who wove their Christian faith into the stories they wrote, The power in Sacred Scripture & Story is in how it inspires us to become connected with and to one another, creation, and the Divine Ultimate Mystery of God. The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom Choices We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Speak or act with an impure mind And trouble will follow you As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart. We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Speak or act with a pure mind And happiness will follow you As your shadow, unshakable. The True Master The man who is awake Shines in the radiance of the spirit. A master gives up mischief. He is serene. He leaves everything behind him He does not take offense And he does not give it. ART: Ballantine's 1965 The Lord of the Rings – Cover Art by Barbara Remington Houston: Press Release - For immediate release, Saint Julian Press proudly presents a new collection of poems by Jeffrey Davis, available on May 23, 2016 through fine book distributors and retailers.Praise for Coat Thief
"Like walking meditations, the poetic feet of Jeffrey Davis's Coat Thief invoke mindfulness through grounded, regular movement. Profoundly attuned to the beauty of daily existence, these poems upend and expand conventional perceptions of magnitude as they give prominence to sneaker prints, earthworms, egg cartons, and other often unnoticed objects. These are poems filled with wonder, poems that demonstrate over and over that we need not rely on esoteric experience for transcendence––because it is, we learn from Coat Thief, the ordinary that is most extraordinary. Yes! It is possible for poetic feet to connect our soles and souls more intimately to the earth, and with Davis, the closer we are to the earth, the closer we are to the divine."
~ Melissa Studdard, I Ate The Cosmos for Breakfast
SAINT JULIAN PRESS ~ PRESS RELEASE
 A few years ago, I participated in a retreat in New York City, Active Compassion - Meditations to Empower People Who Empower Others, sponsored by Union Theological Seminary and the Foundation for Active Compassion, led by John Makransky, PhD., Associate Professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College. John is also an ordained Lama within the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. My friend Paul Knitter, the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union then, and one of my own spiritual benefactors, invited me to attend; Paul assisted John over the weekend. While in the city, I had hoped to see the World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial now open to the public. So, on my first morning, I got up early, found the web site to plan your visit, and reserved an entrance pass. I was lucky enough to get a 10AM time. My entrance pass had to be picked up in lower Manhattan close to St. Paul’s Chapel, part of Trinity Church Wall Street and the Episcopal Diocese of New York - Worldwide Anglican Communion. I arrived downtown at about 9AM, in plenty of time to claim my pass and walk around viewing the sights. At that time in the morning lower Manhattan is full of commuters and in this case tourists, since the New York City Marathon was also that weekend. While walking around I discovered Zuccotti Park, formerly called Liberty Plaza Park. This is where Occupy Wall Street was once located. I was intrigued of course. And amazed a bit, by the bright interconnections that bring us all together within this world, connections we only have to look for with mindfulness to find. What I discovered at Occupy Wall Street early that morning was a community of hope, a community of open and hopeful people wishing to make some profound changes in the way the world is today. What I found was a community of compassion that was reaching out to others in the hope that they can make a real difference in transforming our worldview. What I witnessed that morning, as I have many times in my life, is how the interconnections between us, help us to see how the world works and to make it work even better. It does work you know, but so often, far too often, we are blinded by our own bias and negative emotions. We cannot see the abundance before us. We don’t see that we live within community all the time, and that from this community arises the reality we all encounter daily.  In Zucotti Park, I saw a peaceful group of people, in many cases still bundled up in their tents and sleeping bags fast asleep while a whole city moved around them. Most of them were just kids, college age kids who wanted to be there in the midst of this movement, in this place in time. Children who wanted to make a difference in their world and who were answering a call to community and hoping to find a new way in which to live. And even though two weeks after the day I was there, Zucotti Park was empty of campers, my hope was that in some form it would become a broader community that helped people to change and transform their world. When you think about it, community is everything, and if you don’t have it, you have nothing, and you can be left with a deep hollowness of the spirit within the self, a deep loneliness. Such, is the hunger for community. Occupy Wall Street is not so much about needed reforms in both the private and public sectors, in commerce and the economy, in government. Although, these are real concerns, terrible in all their complexity, which as a society we should address with a sense of justice and wholeness, social justice and human wholeness. More than this, it’s about community, it’s about learning to live within community and to honestly care for your neighbor. It’s about living the dream of community. And that’s what the people, the children of Occupy Wall Street, were (and still are I hope) trying their best to practice, wherever they may find themselves. My hope is that they will continue to practice community in the most thoughtful sense of that word. One tragedy of the hard economic times the world and many people are living through today is in their loss of community. Occupy Wall Street was a finger pointing to this loss, something we have all felt, something we may feel even now. And something we need more than we can imagine, more than we can see in our political and social biases, in our fears. Fears that drive us towards more fear, more anxiety. Fear of the government, fear of the banks, fear of corporations, fear of an unpaid mortgage, fear of more taxes, fear of another stock market crash, fear of having less, fear of going hungry, fear of someone else having more, fear of the next bad news of the day, which comes to us so easily through our addictions to the news media. And ultimately, you know, fear of one another. Do you really want to live in such fear; do you really want to live your life in this way?  Is this living life abundantly? Our national dialogue and discourse are deeply broken, so broken that people and leadership can no longer come to the table together. So broken, that conversational leadership is no longer taking place. Our battles over ideologies are taking the day; they have become habitual and addicting. Our ideologies have become idols. The media enables us to wallow in negative emotions and fear, arguing constantly over ideologies and politics, pumping up the fear, along with our adrenaline level. You see this every day; it’s all over the news media, and in our political and social discourse. We are lost. We have forgotten who we are as a people in the deepest core of our self We turn on the news and expect exactly what we see and hear, more of the same rhetoric time and time again. It is an ever-increasing downward spiral that leads to frustration and anger, destroys the conversation, and prevents open relationships. And in the process, we may be destroying one another, and the hope of a new generation. We have forgotten that loving-kindness fills our lives already with untold blessings. We have forgotten that God’s love pours out upon us all. What’s the solution then, the alternative; might it be forgiveness, acceptance, loving-kindness, and openness? An openness to one another that takes us beyond all ideologies; an openness that encourages us to work together towards real solutions to real issues; an openness that helps us to see the beauty and love that constantly surrounds us each day, and gives us a way of counting our blessings. Later that morning, I walked a just a few small blocks over from Zucotti Park to the World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial. Where I stood in line with people from all over the country and the world, making up an international community. What brought us all together was a need to share our grief and compassion with one another, perhaps a need for some closure even, and to remember those who had perished; to remember a need for community, a need for peace, a need for one another. No one in line asked about your ideology or politics or faith, whether or not you were conservative or liberal or moderate; we simply stood there together in reflection and peace. We stood with one another, in silent communion, in thought and prayer. It was a sacramental moment, a moment of sharing, a moment of loving-kindness, and a moment of openness.  If you believe in some fashion that each one of us is created in the “Image of God.” If you believe that God rests in each of us as an image, as the core ground of our being, as love. Then you may also believe that this image is reflected in others, in all humanity. 1 John 4:16 – “So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” From an interfaith perspective we may call this image our Christ Nature, our Buddha Nature, or some other Divine Nature. As a Christian, I know it as the Holy Spirit who dwells within. This is a reality, which transcends all the symbols and language used to describe the Divine. But it is real; it is a part of each one of us, this goodness of the Spirit dwells with us all. It is written as a word within us. It is love at work within the world. I am reminder of these words from the work of Thomas Merton. "Again, that expression, le point vierge, (I cannot translate it) comes in here. At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely." [Thomas Merton: Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, pg. 158] What is Merton asking us to understand about others and ourselves? Simply, that this love is alive, that this invisible light of heaven lives in everyone. It is the fullness of our human and spiritual potential as a people of God; however, you may imagine God to be at work in your life today. Love is the sustaining force of all our lives, moving through us always, all through our life, and the life of others. Love is a force of creation, binding us together as one, as union, as unity. Even when we have forgotten to remember it in the smallest of things, in a warm smile given to a stranger, in a kindness unasked for and undeserved, in the simple grace we receive each day of our lives. Love flows through us all; it is the sustaining force of creation itself. The success of any movement, such as Occupy Wall Street, will not be measured by what they may immediately achieve and change, or not. But rather I believe by the community they have created that arises out that movement. Community can happen anywhere and at any time, even virtual communities. Community is many things to many people, but one of its central roles, is to help us engage and know one another, to help expand the dialogue, and to open it up to others.  We may each be individuals, but we share a common reality, we live in community with one another. We are interconnected. In this sense, in a very visceral and true sense, we are not single. We are not one, or two, or three, or four, but something more, something larger, something more profound. Who we are as individuals arises out of that community, out of all our relationships, and in that sense we are the true keepers of one another, we hold each other’s hopes, hearts, dreams, and fullest potential. We are neighbors. We are community. It’s something we should keep in mind as we enter another Presidential election cycle in 2016. Who is your neighbor and where do you find community? Don’t look too far; it’s right beside you, right here, right now. Ron Starbuck Copyright 2016 Saint Julian Press  4/23/2016 IN A NAMELESS CITY Pray for Peace IN A NAMELESS CITYIn a nameless city, a radical fundamentalist sits nervously before me with a cup of coffee in hand. Trying to explain to me the absolute reality of his beliefs, his truth, his god. Don't bother to ask me which beliefs, it hardly matters, they are his own. I try to remind him how extensive the visible universe is, how old and open that what we see from earth is 28 billion parsecs in diameter. How small we all are in such a vastness. I try to explain that what we do see is only a partial vision of the eternal, arguing creation is boundless. And when seen from inside God's eye, how it is always expanding in its acuity as his sight moves effortlessly across creation. How the known universe is always changing, growing, evolving even as we speak; as a mystery. And the best we can do is live inside this mystery, when what we do know is only a single grain of sand resting with a finite number of other grains. What we know is that our billions of galaxies far out number all the grains on all the beaches humankind ever walked upon through human history. I try to tell him how precious and unique all life is, how sacred. How we are, meant to love and be loved. His eyes are blank. I say all this to him while looking directly into each one of his blue eyes, trying my best to make some connection. Then I see the vest under his coat, the look of fear in his eye, words hurriedly spoken to an unknown god come spilling out of his mouth in a travesty of prayer, an explosion of light and heat. Then the utter silence of many voices, which will never be heard again. The silence deafens us. It is death. This poem is taken from When Angels Are Born by Ron Starbuck. Saint Julian Press, Inc. © 2013 ISBN: 978-0615751498 2/13/2016 Happy Valentine's Day
Joanne Starbuck & Hannah Atkins
Rainer Maria Rilke ~ The Duino Elegies ~ The First ElegyDigital Art & Angelic Images ~ Created from Photography by Adolfo Valente, used with permission from ADOLFO VALENTE PHOTOGRAPHY.  The First Elegy Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic Orders? And even if one were to suddenly take me to its heart, I would vanish into its stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear, and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains to destroy us. Every Angel is terror. And so I hold myself back and swallow the cry of a darkened sobbing. Ah, who then can we make use of? Not Angels: not men, and the resourceful creatures see clearly that we are not really at home in the interpreted world. Perhaps there remains some tree on a slope, that we can see again each day: there remains to us yesterday’s street, and the thinned-out loyalty of a habit that liked us, and so stayed, and never departed. Oh, and the night, the night, when the wind full of space wears out our faces – whom would she not stay for, the longed-for, gentle, disappointing one, whom the solitary heart with difficulty stands before. Is she less heavy for lovers? Ah, they only hide their fate between themselves. Do you not know yet? Throw the emptiness out of your arms to add to the spaces we breathe; maybe the birds will feel the expansion of air, in more intimate flight. Yes, the Spring-times needed you deeply. Many a star must have been there for you so you might feel it. A wave lifted towards you out of the past, or, as you walked past an open window, a violin gave of itself. All this was their mission. But could you handle it? Were you not always, still, distracted by expectation, as if all you experienced, like a Beloved, came near to you? (Where could you contain her, with all the vast strange thoughts in you going in and out, and often staying the night.) But if you are yearning, then sing the lovers: for long their notorious feelings have not been immortal enough. Those, you almost envied them, the forsaken, that you found as loving as those who were satisfied. Begin, always as new, the unattainable praising: think: the hero prolongs himself, even his falling was only a pretext for being, his latest rebirth. But lovers are taken back by exhausted Nature into herself, as if there were not the power to make them again. Have you remembered Gastara Stampa sufficiently yet, that any girl, whose lover has gone, might feel from that intenser example of love: ‘Could I only become like her?’ Should not these ancient sufferings be finally fruitful for us? Isn’t it time that, loving, we freed ourselves from the beloved, and, trembling, endured as the arrow endures the bow, so as to be, in its flight, something more than itself? For staying is nowhere. Voices, voices. Hear then, my heart, as only saints have heard: so that the mighty call raised them from the earth: they, though, knelt on impossibly and paid no attention: such was their listening. Not that you could withstand God’s voice: far from it. But listen to the breath, the unbroken message that creates itself from the silence. It rushes towards you now, from those youthfully dead. Whenever you entered, didn’t their fate speak to you, quietly, in churches in Naples or Rome? Or else an inscription exaltedly impressed itself on you, as lately the tablet in Santa Maria Formosa. What do they will of me? That I should gently remove the semblance of injustice, that slightly, at times, hinders their spirits from a pure moving-on. It is truly strange to no longer inhabit the earth, to no longer practice customs barely acquired, not to give a meaning of human futurity to roses, and other expressly promising things: no longer to be what one was in endlessly anxious hands, and to set aside even one’s own proper name like a broken plaything. Strange: not to go on wishing one’s wishes. Strange to see all that was once in place, floating so loosely in space. And it’s hard being dead, and full of retrieval, before one gradually feels a little eternity. Though the living all make the error of drawing too sharp a distinction. Angels (they say) would often not know whether they moved among living or dead. The eternal current sweeps all the ages, within it, through both the spheres, forever, and resounds above them in both. Finally they have no more need of us, the early-departed, weaned gently from earthly things, as one outgrows the mother’s mild breast. But we, needing such great secrets, for whom sadness is often the source of a blessed progress, could we exist without them? Is it a meaningless story how once, in the grieving for Linos, first music ventured to penetrate arid rigidity, so that, in startled space, which an almost godlike youth suddenly left forever, the emptiness first felt the quivering that now enraptures us, and comforts, and helps. Rainer Maria Rilke Duino Elegies Translated by A. S. Kline © 2001 All Rights Reserved This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose. Reading by Ron Starbuck Music: http://amzn.to/1OlPWgO Snow ~ Kindle a Flame Mystic Harmony 2005 The Angelic images used with this recording of the First Elegy, are inspired by the photography of Adlolfo Valente.   "For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear, and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains to destroy us. Every Angel is terror. And so I hold myself back and swallow the cry of a darkened sobbing." 9/12/2015 SONNET 18 ~ William Shakespeare SONNET VXIII in honor of our eighteenth wedding anniversary, happy anniversary Joanne.  Joanne Starbuck & Hannah Atkins Sonnet VXIII
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
SONNET VXIII in honor of our eighteenth wedding anniversary, happy anniversary Joanne. The other lady in this photo is Hannah Atkins, one of Joanne’s best friends, mine too.  Trinity Episcopal Church where we were married eighteen years ago.  Trinity Episcopal Church  Mom & Dad 1948  My Maternal Grandparents 1919 9/9/2015 Poetic Mythos
W I N D W A R D ~ Poetic Mythos
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Publisher's BlogRON STARBUCK is the Publisher/CEO/Executive Editor of Saint Julian Press, Inc., in Houston, Texas; a poet and writer, an Episcopalian, and author of There Is Something About Being An Episcopalian, When Angels Are Born, Wheels Turning Inward, and most recently A Pilgrimage of Churches, four rich collections of poetry, following a poet’s mythic and spiritual journey that crosses easily onto the paths of many contemplative traditions. Archives
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This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.
As an Amazon Associate — Saint Julian Press, Inc. may earn funds from any qualifying purchases.
This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.