The Windover To Christ Our Lord
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
Gerard Manly Hopkins
Today was a magical day to live a poem, so I had to find a magical poem to live. I didn’t set out with any poem in mind, however, as the day progressed a poem emerged. This is how it happened.
I left home about 10:30am to walk to a protest against our provincial premiere. If I’m going to complain about him, I have to show up or shut up! It was a short 6.5kms walk some of it through the cemetery, where I recited the rosary to help with Pope Leo’s day of prayer for world peace. I’m not particularly religious, but I love this new pope and I’m willing to help in anyway I can to stop these wars!! Prayer is a kind of religious magic.
I was early for the protest so I dropped into Balzac for a coffee and a vegan muffin – delicious. And since I had always planned to pop into a fabric store near the cafe´to buy a pattern for a vest to sew and embellish once I have finished at least one of my two unfinished projects, I went to Fabricland, looked through what was left of their patterns, bought nothing and left. Not really that poetic and not obviously magic, but I dream in needlework. It is my magical form of Art.
This delay left me a little short of time to arrive at the protest in good time. However, I felt I could still add my body to the throng and maybe make a difference. Well, by 1:00pm the protest was over; I managed to see one person with a sign and failed to see any significant horde chanting “Go Home DoFo.” Even if I had arrived on time, my body would not have tipped the balance in any significant way to stop another takeover of our public places…. alas! The magic here is that I actually got out to protest!
It was now after 1:00pm and since I had to be back by 3:00pm for my phone call with my sister-in-law, I disappeared down some stairs in the park which lead to the “Museum” subway stop. This was magic bordering on Science Fiction. Who places the entrance to a subway in the middle of a public park? It was another first for me and I have lived in this city for almost 80 years. I will do this again because I loved the pillars in the station built to resemble museum artifacts – totem pole bears, Doric columns, sarcophagi etc. There is magic underground.
I transferred at the next stop to the Bloor-Danforth line and two stops later, exited to the Yonge line. Riding the rails is its own kind of magic. At Eglinton I left the subway to walk to the library, return “Walking the Woods and the Water” and pick up “Landmarks,” a book about our disappearing language. Libraries are the original receptacles of magic. On the walk home, I met neighbours and had a wonderful chat – the magic of a community.
So why this poem? Well, in the book Landmarks there is a passage about the Curlew, a bird in decline. Its other names are Kestral and Windover. I immediately thought of “The Windover to Christ Our Lord.” It’s a favourite poem by a favourite poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins, who was a Jesuit. Today was a day of prayer, protest, and persistence. It was also a day of words, images and discovery. I think that this poem captures the magic of the day! It is busy with many twists and turns, ups and down and many magical words. “Sillion” has to be one of my favourites – the earth unearthed.