Good morning!! Perfect coffee...perfect filler amount....and to top it off - September weather and a sweatshirt - seems like the combines should be coming out of storage!! What a strange week for July....absolutely beautiful, worthy of another cup of coffee, don't you think? Several years ago I was able to see the movie Les Miserables, a film on the book by Victor Hugo (first published in 1862). One of those movies that you leave silent, not sure whether anything could come out of your own mind to top what has just been put in. On a man sacrificing much to go with what was important morally to him...trying to accept forgiveness for decisions in his past and move forward. I picked up Selected Poems by Hugo this week and found the following poem that again left me in awe...how someone could once again put into words what I had thought, but never solidified. I hope you enjoy this - on the beauty of a small child, as much as I did. I wish I could read your mind on what lines you like best...picture the following scenes as you read...
One-Year-Old by Victor Hugo
When he arrived, the family clapped their hands and called to him.
his sweet look made our looks more tender.
Even the saddest, the most haggard face would smile to see him innocent and happy..
With June green at the threshold, or November splashing firelight on the hearth,
chairs drawn close by evening, when he came, his joy contained us in its clarity:
we laughed, we called to him, his mother caught her breath to see him walk.
Sometimes, stirring up the fire, we spoke about great causes: justice, truth, and art,
souls stirred by passion; but, when he arrived, our high talk stopped -
God, Art, and the Republic - all suspended in a smile.
As if, at night, when every mind must sleep, in dreams where waves among the reeds make
low sobs like a woman's voice, as if dawn swept up like a beacon
over the wide fields, rousing into fanfare all the great bells and the songbirds --
Child! you are that dawn to me, and in my soul wildflowers steeped in sunlight breathe their balm
when your breath brushes mine.
In these dark woods in me black branches burgeon for you only, and turn gold at sunrise, filling with sweet murmurs.
Because your eyes are infinitely tender, because your small hands, joyful, wholly blessed,
have wronged no one ever, your steps never touch our filth, your head
is sacred, your blond hair makes visible the aura of angelic thought.
You see a world beyond mere understanding. In your body nothing is unclean,
nothing in your soul impure! Your gaze, astonished, ravished, wanders --
everywhere you offer up your soul to life and your mouth to kisses!
Lord, keep me, and keep the ones I love, my brothers, kinsmen, friends - worst enemies:
preserve us from the hell of summer unsurprised by flowers, from the bare cage
without songbirds, from the hive the bees deserted, and the house unvisited by children.
How do I add to those scenes? The stopping of all deep thoughts when the child grins...the little hands..."everywhere you offer up your soul to life". How do we continue that after we've "grown up"? Can we continue to be surprised by flowers? Can we continue to notice details? To offer up our souls to life. I love that line. Life. All around us is such beauty. Can we stop, as the scene by the fire...stop and catch our breaths with what we have given to us? Regardless of what has been "taken away"? Stop. Wholly blessed? Stop. Praying to regain the purity of childhood. Stop. Praying for the ability to hear the songbirds, to notice the flowers, and to look into the eyes of the children that enter our worlds? Stop. Long enough to look into the eyes of each that are enter our world? Stop. Notice. Offer up our souls to life?
Go on with your day. Make your minutes count...live in as many ways as possible as the child above - notice. Notice the birds - they're singing for you. Look up to the hills with your prayers...drop to your knees. The peace that passes your understanding will be given to you. A promise. Go take on your day - make your epitaph tonight be worth writing for the moments that you use up today. Thank you so much for letting me enter your Thursday again and for letting your children play in our store. For trusting me with ideas for what is edifying for our minds to read. For giving me your suggestions and critiques. All you do matters & I sincerely thank you. I hope I'm working when you come in the store, but if not - know I thank you & say hi! Susan
Latin for this week: Maxima debater puero reverentia - We owe the greatest respect to a child ....
Works Cited:
Hugo, Victor. Selected Poems. Penguin Putnam. 2002.
