Deep calleth unto deep

great mysterious
multitudinous
voice of the sea —

a composite of all
sounds of the world
brought down
by all the rivers
in their courses
through the lands —

all the sounds
the earth utters
to the heavens
in its daily life —

the tinkle and drip
of pellucid springs
hidden deep in
remote hill countries —

the rattling laughter
of summer streams
with rustling leaves
and piping birds —

the deep whisper
of the woods and
the boom and roar
as they wrestle
with the winds —

the crash of waterfalls
echoes of mountains
the rush of storms and
roll and peal of thunder —

the merry shouts
of playing children
commingled murmurs
of manifold labor and
brooding world-spirit —

the clatter and
grinding of mills
the tumultuous
straining voices
of busy towns —

the world-embracing sea
has taken in and blended
and harmonized all these
into its own eternal call —

as you, child of the world
sit there and listen
your own comes back
to you in that mighty voice —

deep calling unto deep
the soul of the sea
to the soul of the man —

—Rev. James H. Ecob, D.D. (1844–1921), from “The Call of the Universe,” Psalm 42:7 sermon, 1904, poetically abridged by Terri Guillemets, 2023

_____________________________
Ecob began his sermon: “I have long wanted some one whose soul hears, to write a poem on this subject, the call of the sea.” The good reverend already had the contents of the poem right there in his prose; I simply set it free for him and sincerely hope that the new creation is to his liking. —tg

XXXI

My stiff-spread arms
Break into sudden gesture;
My feet seize upon the rhythm;
My hands drag it upwards:
Thus I create the dance.

I drink of the red bowl of the sunlight:
I swim through seas of rain:
I dig my toes into earth:
I taste the smack of the wind:
I am myself:
I live.

The temples of the gods are forgotten or in ruins:
Professors are still arguing about the past and the future:
I am sick of reading marginal notes on life,
I am weary of following false banners:
I desire nothing more intensely or completely than this present;
There is nothing about me you are more likely to notice than my being:
Let me therefore rejoice silently,
A golden butterfly glancing against an unflecked wall.

—John Gould Fletcher (1886–1950), Irradiations, 1915

Stoic

I searched the history of grass,
Beneath hawk-shadows blowing past.

I learned the timelessness of stone;
Saw forest-flesh and forest-bone
Reach briefly up, go swiftly down,
Crash in green, dissolve to brown.

Taught by decay and schooled by molder,
I can turn a stoic shoulder
To beauty spiking searching eyes
And breasts defenselessly unwise.

Against impermanence I lock
My soul, confiding it to rock.

—Frances M. Frost (1905–1959), “Stoic,” Hemlock Wall, 1929

I Vowed that I Would Be a Tree

I vowed that I would be a tree.
      I went up to an oak and said,
“What shall I do that I might be
A beech, an oak, or any tree,
      With branches leafing from my head?”

There was a sound of sap that ran,
      There was a wind of leaves that spoke.
“So you would cease to be a man,
And be a green tree, if you can,
      A pine, a beech, an oak?”

I answered, “I am tired of men,
      As tired as they of me.
I fain would not return again
To the perplexity of men,
      But straightway be a tree.”

There was a sound of winds that went
      To summon every oldest tree,
To hold their austere Parliament
About the thing had craved to be
      Elect of their calm company.

There was a sound of bursting tide,
      There was a wash of clanging foam,
A crumbling shore, a bursting tide.
There came a thunder that outcried,
      “Go, wretched mortal, get thee home!

“Who art thou that would be a tree,
      Least of the weeds that shoot and pass?
Bide till a Wisdom come, and see
Before a mortal be a tree,
      He first must be a blade of grass!”

—Louis Golding (1895–1958), Sorrow of War, 1919

Rippling

in nature i am
water in the breeze
going with the flow

in society i thrash
every cell halting
resistance grows
i become boulder
thrown off cliffs
accelerating through
no choice of my own
landing hard
splitting open
shattering into
everything wrong

—Terri Guillemets