[Don’t say I didn’t warn you!]
Reflections on the Moon
(inspired by my wife)
Why do I find the moon
Such an alluring eye,
Hanging in our outer space
Moving round our sky?
Why’s she looking down at us
From her celestial throne,
From her quiet chariot,
With its one-note rhythmic tone?
Ever changing, ever fixed,
Silently she sees
That few remark her beauty
Or her power o’re the seas.
Her exquisite beauty,
Always chaste and always true,
Reminds us that her classic role
Is not to be but woo.
Contemplative, to look beyond
Her beauty and her grace
To see her heavenly glory
Reflected in her face.
In this wide vast universe
Of galaxies and sun
We always have above us
Our perpetual holy one.
[AFTERWORD: I know, Anthony Esolen would be appalled; I am trying to be appalled too, but the verses are too much fun to read, anyway. Therefore, here it is, with all its dark spots, Grub Street flaws and such.]
Lucy in Love
Sun-grey bark glistening, mid afternoon light,
Leaf-bare cold limbs fend off winter’s dark night.
As Lucy comes walking, praying to God,
A nearby youth hears an Angel unshod.
Barefoot, she stops near the bare maple tree,
Her eyes green as emeralds, lips full and free;
Her black hair falls brightly, shoulder length bred—
She summons him briskly, nodding her head.
The youth takes her hand, still warm from the sun,
Looks in her green eyes, knows she’s the right one;
Her smile is a blessing, remakes his heart,
He’ll love her forever, never to part.
Soft as the fur on a puppy’s small chest,
Smooth as the silk from her flowing white dress,
Such is the brown skin on her lovely face,
As he touches her cheek, Heaven’s sweet grace.
Softly the light on this fine winter day,
Glows with fresh vigor as much as to say,
Vows that you make under this sleeping tree,
Will blossom in springtime for all to see.
(AFTERWORD: Another embarrassing clunker though I did manage iambic pentameter and a reasonable, but hardly exquisite or original, rhyme scheme: aabb. The only thing I can say for it is that I worked it out very carefully over two weeks, determined to make the rhythm; I did at least manage 10 syllables a line, though there are several lines that might be better with eleven or even twelve syllables:
A nearby youth listens to an Angel unshod…
He touches her cheek, feeling Heaven’s sweet grace…
Soft as the fur on a puppy dog’s chest… [just an alternative 10]
Oh well…. I suppose the worst thing is that I actually enjoy reading both of them and then made them public! Ha! Abandon hope! If you follow me!)
[One more lofty experiment. Ha. Again, I loved Simon, and this verse nicely captures that for me. Four days ago our daughter Johanna had to have her favorite dog, Gracie, “put down,” euthanized. Her loss (and her husband’s, Bobby’s, too, of course) brought to the foreground of my mind our loss of Simon. He brought me joy when he was here; he was a lifesaver. Words and images keep my memory of him alive. Even now then he is a lifesaver, as well as being, on my iPad, a screen saver. For two mystery novels that celebrate the goodness, joy and wonder of dogs, read Dean Koontz’s two novels, Watchers and Devoted. Or, if you want to discover novels where the dog actually narrates the mysteries very convincingly, read Spencer Quinn’s mystery novels.]
SIMON
Simon—God’s good gift to me,
As rich a gift as gifts could be.
We went for walks on country trails;
Love’s a gift that seldom fails.
I see him often in my mind;
Perfection of the dachshund kind.
I miss him mostly every day,
Regretting most his too brief stay.
“Thirteen years would be too short,”
Says the Judge in the Heavenly court;
“Yet thirteen years is more than none
When everything is said and done.
“Rejoice then in your past good gift,
Though now between you time’s a rift,
A fissure that you cannot cross:
Love’s way more than grief for loss.”
[To redeem your experience here, so to speak, I discovered this passage in an essay on depression in the University of Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal. The title is Curing Depressed Humans, Not Nervous Systems, written by Sofia Carozza & Maria Graziano. (February 02, 2023)]
SOURCES: Beauty, Truth, Goodness in the Aquinas account of human nature (les):
[…. The] Thomistic tradition is set apart by its internal coherence and expanse. Its view of the human being as a composite of a body and rational soul, which possesses the powers of intellect and will, offers a fruitful ground for a non-reductive consideration of depression.
The Thomistic Account of the Human Person
Nowhere is the expanse of this anthropology clearer than in the magnum opus of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologiae. Through this work, he systematically explains Catholic teaching, and his account of the human person as a body-soul composite lays the groundwork for much of his explanation.
The distinction between what falls under the “body” and what falls under the “soul” is not as straightforward as one might think. The body is, in short, what neuroscience and medicine can address; this includes sensory input, sensory understanding, and emotions. It includes the aspects of the person that we share with other living things. For example, dogs can experience and understand sensations, and, as anyone who has observed a dog can tell you, they clearly have emotions—though those emotions may differ in nature from our own.
The body is concerned with physical and emotional interactions with the surrounding world, and therefore primarily, in the view of Aquinas, with beauty. Without the sensory input and understanding that are concomitants of our corporeality, we would be incapable of experiencing the beauty of creation or of feeling the emotional responses that accompany these experiences.
For a body to be a human body, however, it must be animated by a soul that is spiritual. Aquinas explains the spirituality of the human soul in terms of the intellect and the will. The intellect accounts for our ability to create abstract ideas from our sensory experience and to achieve rational—rather than merely sensory—understanding. It also makes it possible for us to discuss, analyze, set goals, and plan on the basis of that abstract thinking and rational understanding. The will, for its part, accounts for our desires and our ability to freely act on what the intellect knows and understands. In short, while the body deals with beauty, the intellect deals with truth, and the will deals with goodness.
