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Poetical Promptings
Rev. John T. Crestwell, Jr.
January 21, 2006

Emily Dickinson said, “If it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that it is poetry.”

Thank you Hiram for sharing your talent with us—blessing us greatly with your words and thank you Nancy for filling our souls with melodious chords that really brought the poetry alive this morning…

Dickinson reminds us there is nothing like poetry.  It is a unique communication device in and of itself.  You cannot listen or read poetry with literal ears—rather you must listen or read and embrace the words intuitively.  Poetry when it is spoken, as it was today, is verbal art.  And it is felt (experienced) and not necessarily understood rationally. But when you get it—you get it and sometimes words cannot quite articulate what you just got…  You just know you’ve been moved and your consciousness has been pricked.

Mary Oliver said "Poetry is a life-cherishing force. And it requires a vision…  For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold; ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry."

Yes, poetry has become a great teacher in our culture just as the parables of Jesus have taught so many through the years… And like the parables, poetry helps us to comprehend the lessons of life.   “Poetry teaches us to appreciate the beauty of just the right word and the mystery of sounds and images woven together just so,” that’s what the poet T.M. Moore said.

One beautiful aspect of poetry is it has a way of noticing the simple everyday stuff that we take for granted.  A pencil, a field, a hill, a cup of coffee, a cook, a cotton washcloth—things we see and use daily and never think twice about—yet the poet finds a way to help us see so much more; help us see how important the little things are.

I remember when I was about 20 and was driving on 395 and I began squinting at the many signs.  I realized I needed glasses…  Not long after that I went in and yes I was near-sighted…  After getting my glasses the first thing I remembered was WOW!  Look at the trees, look at the leaves—I could see the details of each leaf; look at the sky, look at all the beautiful people! EVERYTHING IS SO BEAUTIFUL!  If you were with me at that moment you might have thought I was on some psychedelic drug.

Before that, when I was a kid, my mother would call to me from downstairs.  I would be upstairs in my room and did not hear her very well.  She said she would have to call for me three to four times…  She began to suspect I had a hearing problem…  Well to the doctor we went.  The doctor discovered I had an abnormal amount of ear wax clogging me up in one ear—that’s pretty nasty isn’t it? I don’t fully remember the procedure, but I remember this big thing going in my ear—I think it was some type of syringe—but BOOM my ear opened up!  It hurt like you wouldn’t believe but I could hear EVERYTHING!  I was like the Bionic Women.  I could hear people across the street, around the corner and I could not believe it!

Well this is how poetry works on us.  We get new eyes each time we read or listen to poetry.  We get new ears—unclogged with the STUFF of life to hear new expressions emanate from its simple words and phrases carefully constructed.

But, unfortunately after I wore my new glasses for awhile the newness wore off.  I could see but stopped paying attention to the little details.  My ears settled in and I could hear, but I was know longer listening to the sounds of life.  This is what happens as we live.  We forget to experience life and we just live.  We forget how the simple things reveal so much and they minister to us in our times of need…

The lesson for us is to never forget what poetry prompts us to do or think or feel or believe.  We must keep the simple things that mean so much, fresh on our hearts so that we can have an experience of life everyday!  Poetry asks us to slow down, and taste the sweet nectar of life.  Slow down, stop and stare at the wonders of creation… Slow down and look at a particular problem that eludes you and find the means to solve it.  But sometimes we’re just moving to fast to taste—moving too fast to stare…  But, for the poet it is in the staring that answers and lessons come.  You see, “Idleness—that is the curse of other people, but it is the nurse of poets,” that’s what Walter D’Arcy Cresswell said (no relation by the way).

Additionally, poetry helps us to move from the profane to the sacred.  It is a device to achieve transcendence.  What I mean here is that when we transcend we go beyond the physical plane of reality to a spiritual plane.  It’s as if I have walked off the street and entered a magnificent cathedral.  And this makes poetry religious for me.

I cannot be thinking about bills, my job, and church finances if I am really listening to the poet or reading poetry.  I have to let go of the physical stuff and let my mind be free to absorb the essence of it all.  At that moment I am leaving the profane, the material, for the sacred or spiritual.  It is no different when you pray or meditate.  You have to let go and let your mind relax and be free to enter the realm of the divine, so to speak…  And this is the place, I believe where healing and hope and answers come…  

And this brings me to my final point that poetry makes us better people and that is why you hear me using words from songs and from other poems frequently.   I want us to be better…  And I know firsthand of poetry’s power, its rhythms and cadences, its seemingly weird phraseologies and sentence combinations—but what poetry does very well is take us to the place we need to go so we can be better human beings!  There is no poet that I know that did not speak and write from a deep conviction to create a more just and loving world!  And that is why I love reading poetry.  John F. Kennedy said it well:  “When power leads men toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.  When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence.  When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”

Thank you Hiram and all the poets of the world for helping us to see where we might be getting a little too arrogant, where we might be getting too caught up in our own concerns that we forget to stop and stare.   Thank you for reminding us to look inward and see the beauty in ourselves—and live outward to share that beauty with others…   Amen. 

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