Poetry

This is a list of the poems I’ve posted on this blog, in order of their appearance. My Psalm settings, and those set in and around the Arthurian legends, are now listed separately.

I welcome and eagerly desire nearly any sort of feedback on my work; suggestions for real titles for those poems which are currently using (some fraction of) their first lines would be particularly helpful. Because this archive has grown so large as to be unwieldy and somewhat intimidating, I posted more manageable selections each week from September 2009 until January 2013.

About sixty of these poems appear in the collection A Year In Verse, which I published in December 2014 and is available [in paperback](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1503147185, on Amazon Kindle, and in other ebook formats. In the collection, each poem is paired with a public-domain engraving or line drawing, much like I’ve used freely-licensed or public domain paintings with many poems on this blog.

The poems I’ve posted, other than Psalm settings and the Arthurian cycle, in order of appearance, are:

• The Traditional Poem: A Melancholy Musing on the Day: A gloomy Valentine’s Day poem.
• Commence with Honor: My high school graduating class’s class poem (as the only candidate), summing up what I feel about graduations (and most partings in general).
• “What if the trumpet”
• Caveat Lector: (“Let the reader beware.”) Claiming blame for poetic flaws and disclaiming credit for poetic merit.
• “Ah! for the olden days”. “Written in one of those rare moments where the poet’s melancholy nostalgia broke long enough to laugh at itself.”
• “Once I lay unwillingly awake”: Is it better to be in love, or to not be in love?
• “Oh, may I never be melancholy”
• Untitled Metaphor #5. Musings on the swift passage of time.
• Song for the Princess #2: The only even-minimally-presentable poem in a series from my sophomore or junior year of high school (summer of 2004 or before).
• “Music swirls around me”: Another high-school-era poem.
• Second Sight: Love (of whatever sort) not at first sight, but …
• “All creation shines” Glory concentrates around the beloved.
• “Ah! to turn back”.
• “There is no unmixed joy”
• The World Turn’d Upside Down
• “How long ago is it”
• Untitled Metaphor #6: The first poem I posted in the series of “untitled metaphors”.
• “Hold! Fleeting instant”: The first truly new poem I posted on this blog, working up to a line borrowed from The Mikado.
• Song for O’Carolan: Probably my first intentionally free verse poem (sophomore year of high school or so?), and my first experience of a poem practically writing itself.
• Nunc dimittis: Following Dante (who quoted Lamentations 1:1 on hearing that Beatrice was dead), through Charles Williams, borrows the Gospel and the liturgy as a response to unwelcome dismissal.
• “Your first kind word”: Followed “Nunc dimittis” by a few months.
• Portrait #3: First posted poem from a (so far short) series of what I call “verse portraits.”
• Untitled Metaphor #8.
• Portrait #1: The first verse portrait, unlike the others probably drawn entirely from my imagination.
• Untitled Metaphor #2.
• Counterpoint: Contrasting early snow with other glories.
• Untitled Metaphor #7.
• Numbered Sonnet Opus 2 #2.
• Untitled Metaphor #1: The poem that sparked the series of “untitled metaphors.”
• “And oh! for some sweet leisure”.
• A Vision of the City: Intended as a portrait of the circle of friends into which I was drawn my sophomore year of college.
• On Time: Describes a dream that recurred until I wrote the poem.
• “After so many tears” Just to be with the beloved …
• “Let no one tell”: “Don’t believe your critics.”
• A Dream: A dream I had in early October 2007.
• “There are no words”: Poetry alone describes the glory I see.
• “Walking down the grocery aisles of dreamland”: A response to an unusual dream.
• After the First Defeat at Luddington: Set after an event from my (WIP) novel Sunshine Civil War
• A Love Unknown
• “If you’re not she”
• “To dance the night away”. Which of two deeply moving experiences is better?
• Sonnet #∞: A poem I wrote for an assignment my senior year of high school.
• Untitled Metaphor #3: The poet searches for a suitable metaphor, in the same vein as the oft-quoted statement that “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”
• “How beautiful the freshly fallen snow!” The only poem I’ve ever written that began with a tune.
• “See how the forest”: An attempt to echo the feel of Tolkien’s laments.
• “Her whom I once loved”
• Temperament
• On the Beloved’s Absence: A description of the beloved, when longing to see her.
• “Sunbeams dance”: The Resurrection should preclude all despair.
• Super flumina Babylonis: Borrowing the words of Psalm 136 to describe being away from my beloved.
• The Romantic’s Lament: A cry of loneliness bordering on imprecation.
• “Why are you quick”: Based around an image drawn from Roman history as depicted in Julia Valeria.
• “How long, O Lord, will you remain aloof?”: With Isaiah, we cry: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!”
• Poetry’s Defence: An attempt to put some ideas from Sidney’s “Apology for Poetry” into Spenserian allegory (a project for my college British literature course).
• Song for the Queen #2: A poem sort of “set” in Tolkein’s Middle-Earth.
• The Beatific Vision: Love changes everything.
• “Fear not, my beloved!”: “Yes, this is sudden, but don’t be afraid.”
• “How beautiful you are, my beloved!”: An attempt to explain why I loved.
• “Your smile, too rare”: The beloved’s smile is like the sun in a West Michigan winter.
• “If, as Paul says”: Glory is too much for me even now.
• “Oh omnipotent Lord”
• “God showers our world”: The source and purpose of beauty.
• The Gift of Love: Love is a gift that reveals its Giver in three ways.
• “How dim the faces”: “Remember[ing] the height from which [I] have fallen.”
• “My dear love hath”
• A New Thing: Things have changed, things stay the same.
• On Falling in Love: Inspired by an experience I had during Epiphany my freshman year of college.
• Approaching Harvest: As we harvest fruit, we beg for another harvest.
• “Lend me those years” … because of how badly I messed them up this time.
• O Felix Culpa? A somewhat disturbing, yet fundamental question.
• Autumn Sunset The glory of nature points to the glory of God.
• Fleeting Vapor: A part of me would rather linger in dreams.
• Crisp Memories: The crispness of a fall evening.
• Evening Shadows: Shadows lengthen as an end draws near.
• “What splendor lies”: People truly do bear the image and glory of God.
• “Here gathered”: A poem for Thanksgiving.
• “Behold, our lives”: How brief is our span of life!
• Dream Treader: A poem prompted by the Narnia novel.
• Weary Winter: I was tired of winter already.
• Incarnation: A meditation on the fact we celebrate at Christmas.
• Remember: “Remember me, friends, but even if we forget, God will not.”
• Epiphany: The Light calls us to waking life.
• “Ah, how I love”: An address to the beloved.
• “Weep, O my eyes!”: For my beloved is gone.
• Moonlit Reverie: If that isn’t moonlight, let me pretend it is.
• Computer and Poet
• “Remember me, fair maiden” A fusion, perhaps, of poems by Christina Rossetti and Mary Queen of Scots.
• “How happy he”: A letter from a friend is a delight.
• The Enduring Muse: My old poems can still move me.
• “I greet the spring”: Has spring come at last?
• Lingering Winter … No.
• Dreamed Promises: A response to a long-ago dream.
• Morning Memory: Morning chases dreams away.
• Pascha: A meditation for Good Friday.
• “Do you remember”: A musing on a fond memory.
• Shadowed Beloved: A shadowed visage is no less beautiful.
• Battlefield Dreams: Prompted by a strange and compelling dream.
• Vanished Moment: Longing for a time gone by.
• Empty Dreams: Why are my dreams, recently, so … thin?
• To the Dance: Nothing will keep me from dancing this set with you.
• Ad Trinitas: A prayer to the Triune God, posted for Trinity Sunday.
• Fading Delight: The joy expressed in “To the Dance” eventually begins to fade.
• A Feline Supplication: An address to the cat who disturbed my rest while I was visiting some friends.
• Reunion: Our reunion was joyous.
• A Summer’s Evening: My joy at the eucatastrophe of the Evart dance overflowed into this poem.
• Nightmare: A poem-prayer after waking in the grip of a nightmare.
• Under the Pines: A reflection on the “Joy” (in C. S. Lewis’s use of the term) I found in Evart.
• The Fading Lights: A meditation on the transience of this life.
• Departure: Leaving Evart after the gathering breaks.
• Noontime Longing: “Nature is lovely and all, but it’s not her!”
• A Bittersweet Farewell: Watching a dear friend travel away.
• “Walk through the buttercups”: A dream of approaching autumn, with perhaps echoes of Milne.
• Ears: “He who has ears to hear …”
• “O silvery moonbeam”: Borrowing the image from Tolkien’s Roverandom.
• Prodigal
• Fleeting Visage: Even a moment’s remembrance of your face brings happiness.
• Dryad Colors: A question prompted by the changing of the leaves.
• Autumn Remembrance: Remembering one happy autumn.
• Sicut Cervus
• Children: Prompted by the delightful children I have encountered in various families and churches.
• Passing: Regret at the fading of a cherished memory.
• Paths of Memory: Remembering happier days as winter blows in.
• Snow’s Purpose: Why does God make snow?
• Letters Only: Prompted by Milne’s poem “Here Lies A Tree” and my longing for a friend’s letters.
• “Dear friend—though we’ve”: Questioning a strange and wonderful dream.
• Advent: Preparing for Christmas.
• Reflection: Looking back.
• Dawn: Light has come into the world.
• “Dreams carry me away”
• Midnight: A sleepless night.
• “Lord, once I prayed”: A possible follow-up to “How long, O Lord, will you remain aloof?”.
• Falling Fire: A reflection on times gone by.
• Quarter Century: A poem for my twenty-fifth birthday.
• “In sickness, as health: A meditation after an illness.
• Winter Wind: The blustery day makes us wish for spring.
• Storm: The storm displays God’s power, and his preservation of us.
• Friday: A Good Friday meditation.
• Breaking Day: Four perspectives on the events of Easter.
• Spring: Spring has come at last.
• Lawn: Of all that I’ve done on and around the Commons lawn …
• “Upon that head”: An Ascension Day poem.
• “No need” A poem for Pentecost
• Heartache A strong longing for a dear friend.
• “I shall forget” … names, but not this Joy.
• Banner Patriotism is good, but we do not owe our flag our highest allegiance.
• “Oh, let us journey” Longing for Evart.
• “O little lady” Remembering someone I met at Evart, then haven’t seen since.
• “O lady beautiful”
• Stars: Nightly surroundings.
• Famine: A meditation on the then-present drought.
• “Why do you weep?”: A brief, almost fragmentary bit of verse.
• School Days: Thinking again of days gone by.
• A Celebratory Toast: Honoring Miss “Aubrey Hansen” (now writing professionally under her own, married, name rather than that pen name).
• The Door: A poem from an image.
• “Be thou with me”: A brief address.
• Stories
• Thanksgiving: A sonnet for the holiday.
• Metamorphosis: A prayer for transformation.
• “How do my knees”
• Christmas Dream: Reflecting on an old dream and an old poem.
• “A new star heralds”: A poem for Epiphany.
• Evening Prayer
• Frost: The closest I’ve come to alliterative verse so far.
• Leaving Evart
• Repentance: An admission of the central fault of much of my work.
• A Clockwork Dream: A poem prompted by yet another very strange dream.
• Radiance: Prompted by the upcoming weddings of several dear friends.
• The Dreams’ Master: Even dreams are subject to the Christ’s rule.
• Catechesis: Written under conviction from the catechism and a sermon on it.
• Triumphal Entry: A poem addressed to the city Jesus entered on Palm Sunday.
• Passion: My third annual Good Friday poem.
• Heralds’ Rejoicing: A meditation on the angels’ role in the Easter story.
• Rest
• Rain: A follow-up to Famine: God has answered creation’s prayer.
• “Send not …” A meditation on lines from Charles Williams and the Bible.
• “How glorious the subtle sounds”: Nature in spring.
• “The feet the prophet once”: A second poem for Ascension Day.
• “I’ve often wondered”: Why I don’t “fit” here and now.
• “Come, Holy Spirit, at whose brooding thought”: An invocation for Pentecost.
• Flying: Looking down from a great height.
• Epithalamium II: A poem to mark the weddings of dear friends.
• Liberty: A somewhat nuanced look for Independence Day.
• Festival: Anticipating our yearly trip to Evart.
• Sunset on the Fairgrounds: An Evart evening.
• Untitled Metaphor #9: Oh, to be as a cat in the household of God!
• “When last we met”: Wandering thoughts at Evart.
• Selfishness
• To Josephine: Acknowledging the debt I owe to a childhood friend, who unwittingly partly sparked what became the Shine Cycle.
• Averted Nightmare: A nightmare turned into someting much less frightening.
• “I worked in vain”: Prompted by a hard disk crash in the absence of full backups.
• “Dear friends, though we”: Posted to mark the “birthday” of the Holy Worlds forum.
• Day’s End
• Crickhollow Revisited: Another look at Tolkien’s “Bath Song,” sort of.
• In Memoriam: Grieving the loss of a cat I’d known almost half my life.
• Ephemera: Two fragments on the fleeting nature of life.
• November: For the beginning of National Novel Writing Month
• “Let human voices rise”: A “filk” depicting a scene from Dragonsinger, the second book in the Harper Hall trilogy.
• First Snow
• “A wealth of food”: A poem of thanksgiving.
• “O come, O King”: An Advent prayer.
• Winter Morning
• Humility: A Christmas poem.
• Awakening: A reflection for Epiphany.
• Tirian: A portrait of the character from The Last Battle.
• Friends: Meeting old and new friends.
• The Praise of Poetry: “Hail, Poetry?” No.
• Canopy: Slightly related to Valentine’s Day.
• Milestone: Another birthday, another year …
• “God has ordained a justice”: A Lenten meditation and prayer.
• “How lovely the sun”: A brief reflection on the transition from winter to spring.
• “The trees stand”: A response to a poem by e. e. cummings.
• “O Lord, who once rode through”: A Palm Sunday prayer.
• “The Life of all that lives: A Good Friday meditation.
• “Jesus has risen! Let us now rejoice”
• “When will I learn?”
• Sail: Prompted by an image from nature and memories of Swallows and Amazons.
• “If my soul’s eyes”: A prayer for repentance.
• “At Bethlehem, a half-lifetime before”: A meditation on the Ascension.
• Brevity
• “O Holy Spirit, Lord, we see abroad”: A Pentecost prayer.
• Ice
• Erde Daybreak Describes a character’s first arrival in Erde, the as-yet-unpublished world by Aubrey HansenRachel Newhouse.
• Molly’s Wedding Written on the occasion of the ball celebrating the marriage of our dance class teacher.
• The Traveler Following the opening line of a poem from The Lord of the Rings.
• Last Words An extended meditation on the Last Words of Christ as recorded in the Gospels (and arranged in Church tradition).
• “If Jesus is alive” A Resurrection Day meditation.
• Acceptance: A bittersweet “farewell,” quasi-epithalamium, inspired more by the music of Tim Halperin than real circumstances.
• Decade Thoughts after my high school ten-year class reunion
• Despair: A meditation on the feeling of brokenness.
• Hodie decennis: A poem (in English) to mark ten years since my first Latin class at Calvin.
• A Welcome Remembered: Gratefully recalling my introduction, and induction, to “the fam” at Calvin, ten years ago.
• Deo Gratias A poem for Thanksgiving 2016 (in English, despite the title)
• A series of verse expansions of or meditations on the O Antiphons (all in English, but borrowing the Latin incipits):
  • Veni, O Sapientia
  • Veni, O Adonai
  • Veni, O Radix Jesse
  • Veni, O Clavis David
  • Veni, O Oriens
  • Veni, Rex Gentium
  • Veni, Emmanuel
• Incarnation II: Another meditation on the miracle of Christmas.
• Magi: Some thoughts about the “Wise Men”
• Sublimation
• Crowds: A Holy Week meditation
• “The King shall come”: An Advent meditation
• Carmel: A reflection on the story of Elijah
• Gardens: A single motif connects the four pivotal events of human history: a poem for Holy Week and Easter.
• Numbered Sonnet Opus 2 #2: A sonnet beginning with the question, “What is happiness?”
• Nostalgia: “Those were the days!” Really?
• Emmaus: Another Easter meditation
• Only Comfort: A verse setting of the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism
• The Empty Forum: A lament for, and call for revival of, the Holy Worlds forum community.
• The Unasked Question: A question never asked aloud of the beloved.
• A Tearful Farewell: In memory of Pastor Val Chappell, who passed away November 3, 2021.
• “Long did I wander”: A description of a dream from October 2021.
• Christmas Marvels
• A Foreboding Dream: A description of a striking and memorable nightmare.
• The Untrimmed Lamp: Comparing the human mind to a lamp.
• Wistful Waking: A response to dreams, happy or not.
• For the Cessation of Music: A sonnet. “If music be the food of love …” then …
• Spring Morning: Alliterative praise for the blessings of spring.
• The Fountain: Explorers seeking for the “Fountain of Youth” missed an even better fountain.
• Liberty’s Rebuke: Starting with a phrase from Shakespeare, questioning what we have gotten for all that we have given up.
• Festival Arrival: Commemorating a memorable moment at Evart.
• Sorry My Lot?: A reflection prompted by a Gilbert & Sullivan aria.
• Heart’s Cry: A reflection on the need for repentance.
• Growth: Wonderment at two children’s growth.
• The Greatest Gift: A verse paraphrase of “the Love Chapter” (1 Corinthians 13)
• “Oh, what a difference”: A series of metaphors about the need for regular renewal.
• Emptying: A meditation on the Incarnation from the perspective of the Kenosis passage.
• Turning: Taking stock at year-end
• Winter Twilight: Marveling at the glory of a winter sunset.
• Sleep: A reflection on sleepless nights.
• Four Questions: A Holy Week meditation inspired by the Passover traditional “Four Questions”