First Things RSS Feed - Duane K. Caylor

Why I Plant Redbuds

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 00:00:00 -0400

“If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today.” —attributed, probably incorrectly, to Martin Luther

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Stealing Pears

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 00:00:00 -0400

Iniquity, O Lord, can be delicious:
always in season, always tender, sweet,
blushing, and aromatic. Not capricious
it always hangs low, begging us to eat.
One night, I stripped a neighbor’s tree of pears—
not grade A pears, but seconds grown for swine—
taking them not because the fruit was theirs,
nor yet because I wanted it for mine.
The only flavor in the act was sin
itself, in which we ever hope to gain
that lie the serpent promised Eve she’d win
by holding your commandment in disdain.
And so my hands grew sticky with crime’s dew.
Yet in this, Lord, your hand pulled me toward you.

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Francis After Collestrada

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0500

Our army met Perugia’s on the plain
beside the hospital. All day we fought
with crossbow, sword, and lancet to obtain
our freedom, but by dusk it came to naught.
So I became a prisoner of men,
as glorious as a rat holed in its nest,
and mourned for joys I might not taste again,
considering him pierced the truly blessed.
Then skulking home, I gained some intimation
of grace in watching lepers beg their food,
and learned no earthly city is my nation,
and that affliction borne can proffer good.
For Heaven holds neither Ghibelline nor Guelph,
but those whom God abases for himself.

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Ruins

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:00:00 -0400

Pill bottles in assorted sizes lie
scattered across the smooth Formica plain
of the bathroom countertop. They testify
like pediments and pillars that remain,

broken, askew, and fallen, on the site
of some great ancient temple, to a past
both glorious and vivid, and invite
the meditations of elegiast.

The architect of this Aesclepion
built carefully that it might stand for years.
Its private altar, visited each dawn
and dusk, suppressed his pain and muffled fears.

But understanding some theology,
we realize that this temple’s final fall
was foreordained before the moment he
laid cornerstone in place to bear it all.

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Christmas Caroling in Colonial Williamsburg

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Many of those here only know a verse
of any given carol, sometimes less—
sometimes an isolated phrase or terse
refrain like “Gloria.” Most still confess
the apostolic faith, though as naïve
in its theology as those days when
as children they would sing on Christmas Eve
in church. Now with the season come again,
and in this antique place, they try to find
a renaissance of meaning in such words,
and build significance from what they’ve mined
in scraps and shards of songs heard and reheard:
a reconstruction of that first Noel
the angel said on Christmas night, how God
gave rest to gentlemen, or why go tell
of Christ’s birth everywhere. Still, these seem odd
ideas to but a few, quaint like remains
of stoneware bottles or ceramic ware—
not ancient verities belief sustains,
but artifacts dug from some basement here.

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The Day the Rain Began

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Genesis 7:12

Today seemed just an ordinary day.
The sun rose like an irritated eye;
wives cooked rice pancakes; children went to play
at tag in dusty fields or caught frogs by
the banks of the Euphrates; while the men
took to the brick kilns, potters’ wheels, and plows;
lovers arose to make love once again;
and old men at the gate weighed claims and vows.
But now this afternoon, things have grown tense.
Anxiety as flour-fine as sand
from Aram fills ours hearts as we watch dense
cloud ziggurats grow tall above the land,
and weather warnings in cuneiform
alert us of a coming thunderstorm.

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Political Calendar

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Spring like a popular insurrection rises
against a winter government’s assizes;

gone mad by June, its liberality
gives way to summer’s fruitful anarchy.

Order returns in autumn as the air
with libertarian chill grows doctrinaire.

Displacing fall, the winter vows to keep
a Tory world, conservative in sleep.

This pattern follows year end and year out
as ideologies are put to rout

at equinox and solstice. So we neither
despair nor glory in the change of weather.

This state of things should discipline our zeal:
all policies will one day face repeal,

all present institutions cede their powers
eventually to circumstance and hours.

Upon this spinning earth, we will not find
a government to permanently bind.

For as with seasons, with affairs of men,
what goes around will come around again.

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Drought Breaker

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Two years of drought seem broken by a deluge
that would be the wrath of God were it not mercy.
No doubt some prophet has spoken to Heaven for us
and obtained a grace sufficient to wash away
all memory of withered crops, clear skies, dry wells,
and the taste and texture of dust in the teeth. No wonder
men dance naked in the streets and sing
and women braid their hair with mint and daisies.
No wonder children clap their hands and laugh
at the tattoo of the downpour on the rooftops.
But may God spare us profligate relief.
For rain may cause the wisest to forget
the vast, dry tragedy of the time behind us,
the unknown danger in the years ahead.

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Journey Into Autumn

Sun, 01 Nov 1992 00:00:00 -0500

Once again, we are on the road early,
driving to see our son
wrestle with cancer for gold.
Clouds fall like a heavy eyelid
over the eastern sky, crowding
the tender light against the horizon—
healthy crimson, healthy orange compressed
by gray as thick as
blasts in leukemic marrow.
Birds fly everywhere before us: electrons
energized to higher shells by
the meager dawn. Life will, life must,
make do on little.

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