Friday, August 23, 2013

Defining the Godhead

by Jen Hunt, from the archives

Defining the Godhead is like
Describing the taste of banana
Carrying an armload of apples in your shirt
Negotiating your car through a side alley
Opening your eyes as you roll down a hill
Some things sooner
Tried than explained,
God among them

Friday, August 16, 2013

The Threshold

by Jen Hunt, from the archives

I’m really not crazy, I tell you
But that door wasn’t open
Not last night anyway
Last night when I looked over my shoulder
As I plodded up bowed stairs toward a dark hallway
It was shut tight as a drum
Tight as my lips, my joints, my fist, my will

Open doors jar me
I know the kind of things that get in
If you’re not looking
The roaches
The rodents
The robbers
I could close it real easy

Most any other day, I would have closed it by now
But I can’t, you see
This morning when I woke
Out of the blackness and
Wandered down the same, sagged stairs
The sea sat
Where the door should be
So I sat down too, to watch
Hemmed by sun and sense

When I waved
The sea waved back
It waved back, I tell you

Now here I am
Lying, belly down on the welcome mat
Stretched clear out on the cobbled floor
Nostrils sucking the warm, dry air
Watching the glorious ocean
Stunned

And I can’t close it
I don’t want to close it
Don’t you see?

All that used to keep me indoors—
The pretty sheers on narrow panes
The empty chairs
The empty corners—
Seems as nothing
Even worse than nothing
Like crap

So I’m ignoring the groaning hour hand
The quiet shelves
The encroaching, eggshell walls
Everything but the free and falling light

I’d like to say that I was a doorkeeper
Here, on my elbows, chin in hand
As I gaze out on the surf and
Blink in disbelief with each curling wave
To say that I was looking out for roaches
But I’m not
I’m thinking of better places than I’ve ever been

I don’t know why I’ve never done this before

I’m not crazy, I tell you
But that door wasn’t open yesterday
How could it have been? Stubborn will!

Who opened the door last night?
Who stirred the sea today?

Wind’s wrist turns sticking knobs
Wind’s gust churns Neptune’s waves

It seems impossibly bright
Has the whole world changed overnight?

Or have I?

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Longing for the Day

Longing for the day when the no
And the no, and the no
Becomes
Yes, and Amen

Friday, August 9, 2013

The 64 Foot Pitch

by Jen Hunt, Annie Dillard-like writing exercise, from the archives

I am fascinated by the reality of undertones in music. Organ makers are keenly aware of the phenomenon. Take a two foot sheet of metal, roll it into a tube, and send a hurricane gust through its innards. There you have middle `C'. Now make a tube twice that length. This four foot tube will hum at a pitch an octave lower. The lowest note you can press on an organ, by finger or foot, is the 32 foot pitch. As you might expect, it requires a thirty-two foot tube and a lot of wind. You press the note timidly and say a prayer. You hope the unseen monster who makes the pipe bellow isn't suffering asthma today. But there is another reason-- besides lung capacity and metal shortage-- why the bottom drops out at thirty-two feet. Go any lower than that, and human ears can't pick the note up. Adventurous organists, however, search for ways to get around this. They grope for the lower pitches like a party show-off with a limbo stick. Performers have noticed and music theorists have confirmed that by pressing the lowest note, the 32 foot, and adding a higher note it, say a quint, you create an undertone one octave lower still. This 64th pitch is a note the human ear can't hear, but the body can feel.
I ask myself if there isn't a 64 foot pitch to the world around me. Maybe even the amoebae experiences the tone as a massage which throws his whole body into palpitation. My soul yearns for proof of a spiritual reality undergirding the world my body sees and feels. Until I was eighteen I lived as one deaf, or rather unmoved, to the boom of the 64 foot pitch. Now the Holy Spirit's quint has wobbled my gut. I feel the groans of the whole creation. And I groan as well.

A Truer Rose

by Jen Hunt, from the archives

A truer flower has ne’er been found
In florist’s house or gardener’s ground
The rose in the bud vase
Dethorned, yet unbruised
Stem cut, death imminent
Standing proud as a Jew
Her petals, arms open
Her leaves like shy hands
Her scent like the perfume
Of faraway lands
Accustomed to sunlight
And cool evening dew
Now basking in halogen
Admirers few
Plucked from reality
Splendor unreal
Fleeting perfection
Platonic ideal
Petals like porcelain
Crafted to last
Though brief be her moment
In life’s hourglass
A truer flower has ne’er been found
In florist’s house or gardener’s ground

Friday, August 2, 2013

For Wee Emily Anna born July 15, 2013, from Auntie Jen

True to her sex, she came out pink
Faster than lightning, bees or blinks
Quite precocious, some would say
What lengths to go for a July birthday
Ten little fingers, ten little toes
Strawberry locks and a wee Watts nose
Never has a girl seemed sweeter
Whether to her clan, or all who meet her!