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Something Higher

the brown scapular of Elijah

Departures and arrivals. Passengers.
The life of one old man describes an arc:
A sudden collapse from sitting. Messengers,
Come lift my weight, grown lighter than a lark,
The height we rise to not the length I fell
But something higher. Seated in a wheel
That rolls to heaven up the sky from hell,
From smokes of sunrise to noon’s clearest zeal,
With zeal have I been zealous. There’s no need
To say “With me, draw him who shared my yoke.”
I know you’re coming, calling “Father,” Son.
Reach into that which bears me, toward my lead,
And take my cloak, my mockable brown cloak,
Plucking it from the center of the sun.

.

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Reading in Rome

for Richard Wilbur

A ruly path past Spring’s untidy trees
And benches set as regular as rhyme,
Its course did not meander.  Still, its line
Bemused us, going places no eye sees.
A no-place in a city steeped in fame:
Plumb central streets—but margins snarled with vine.

How much we are the woods we wander in
And cities are the wilderness that laps them.
Steel sharpens steel and hill to hilltop howls.
When brothers share the wolf milk strong as wine
And cozy in the pulsing pelt that wraps them,
How much our battles issue from our idylls.

That afternoon we sat and did our reading.
Deceptive peace that breathes in Spring’s long days
Rustled the leaves, played shadows on the page.
For respite from philosophy’s fine printing,
I pressed the lids and deep behind my eyes
Sprang rainbowed leopards from a darker age.

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Poet’s Note: The first line of the second stanza is a quote from Richard Wilbur’s poem “Ceremony.”

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Letters and Signs

a midrash

Jacob taught Rachel secret signs
So on the wedding night,
A desert night when no moon shines,
He’d know her without sight.

Jacob taught Leah the letters.
He knew she loved him too,
Her mind above women’s matters
And set upon the True.

But Leah was weak, Rachel kind,
And so they made a trade.
She bartered the things of the mind
To learn how lovers played.

The moral is there but it hides.
One lost, the other won.
And one brother sleeps with two brides
The other in fields, alone.

.

.

Monika Cooper is an American family woman.

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22 Responses

  1. C.B. Anderson

    Both poems emit the faint scent of sacred mystery, only thinly veiled. Each line holds a clue, a piece of the puzzle unfolding before the reader. This is how you teach us the letters. You have brought back rhyme, but you eschew strict linearity. In my opinion, there is no better model than Wilbur, and it looks to me, Monika, as though you’ve learned a thing or two from that man.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, C.B. Wilbur is a rich poet, worthy of study. What do you mean by “strict linearity”?

      Reply
      • C.B. Anderson

        “Strict linearity” is apodictic logical necessity determined by the literal meaning of words. You run deeper than that. If you do not already know that, then just accept the fact that others see it.

  2. Brian A. Yapko

    I enjoyed all three of these poems, Monika — especially for their unique points of view and memorable phrasing. Your midrash (how awesome to make that a poetry term) strikes me as a work which could be part of a larger series.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      I’m glad you enjoyed them, Brian. Wish I could write more in the vein of “Letters and Signs” but it seems to have been a one time inspiration.

      Reply
  3. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Your first and last poems bring to my mind two Bible stories I remember well. I particularly liked “Letters and Signs” with the rhymes contained in them. I loved the line in “Reading in Rome: “How much we are the woods we wander in…” That was inspired.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, Roy! I’m glad the rhymes in “Letters and Signs” passed your muster.

      Speaking of the rhymes, the third line should actually be “A desert night when no moon shines.” I wish I’d caught that before sending it.

      Reply
  4. Monika Cooper

    One more poet’s note: “rainbowed” should not be italicized in the last line.

    Thank you to the readers and maintainers of the SCP site!

    Reply
  5. jd

    I thought all three were excellent, Monika. Your love and study of the Bible shows in a lovely, creative way. All three encourage re-reading, often.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, jd. Yes, the Bible is full of letters and signs that give us a language for speaking mysteries. I’m glad you enjoyed my poems.

      Reply
  6. Julian D. Woodruff

    All three are very fine, Ms. Cooper. All beg my rereading–several times. I, too, admire the line Mr. Peterson sites, as well as the one that follows, “… And cities are the wilderness that laps them,” even though Rome would have been well down the list of cities that spring into my mind. (BTW, your paraphrase (translation?) of “Nessun dorma” was very felicitous.)

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, Mr. Woodruff. I’m also glad you liked the “Nessun dorma” piece. It is much more a paraphrase than a translation. I don’t have Italian at all really, but an historical acquaintance with Latin.

      Reply
  7. jd

    Each time I read them, I find more wonder.
    The first one could be prayer.

    I like your bio too. Humble and enigmatic.

    Reply
  8. Margaret Coats

    Monika, I notice that you’ve added “the brown scapular of Elijah” as epigraph to “Something Higher.” The Catholic Literary Arts presentation of your first-place poem, instead, identified the painting to which the poem responded. I like the additional layers of brown-wool significance, suggesting still higher things to many who wear the Carmelite garb. And this token of Carmel and Elijah is available to all, Catholic or not, so I think it helps universalize the appeal the prophet makes to Elisha at the end of your poem.

    “Reading in Rome” is to me a thoughtful picture of springtime study abroad. It owes much to Richard Wilbur, but offers a Monika Cooper line I like better than the one you take from him: “How much our battles issue from our idylls.”

    “Letters and Signs” has many wonders, most of all the consideration of Leah’s unrequited love for Jacob. This has so much to say about marriage! To stay with the central characters, both sisters suffer dissatisfactions and disappointments, but Leah wins the earlier wedding night, and ultimately she wins in becoming the ancestress of the True through her son Judah. I wonder, though, about the “one in the fields, alone.” Is it Esau, the other brother? He already had wives, but he was a man of the fields. And like Leah, he could not obtain a certain blessing he wanted. Love to know what you are thinking there.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Margaret, thank you for all these delicate and insightful thoughts. To “universalize the appeal the prophet makes to Elisha”: that’s exactly what I wanted those lines to do. I sent the poem to the CLA contest with the subtitle; I’m not sure why they decided not to include it.

      That line “How much our battles issue from our idylls”: there’s a bittersweet memory there of companions nurtured with me in the Western tradition who chose the other side in the world-historical conflict of our day. I can only hope that some day we’re gathered back to our primal sympathy. (Tension-ridden though it always was.)

      Yes, it’s Esau. Yes, he had wives too, but wives from the outside. And I hear him howling in the wilderness for what he lost. I didn’t see Leah as the winner at the end of the poem but she certainly received many compensations from providence for her failure to win Jacob’s love. Like Martha and Mary, the sisters are seen as symbolic of the active and contemplative life, and their story is a lens for the feminine dilemma. In the poem, Rachel begins with “lower nature” and receives the higher things in addition. Leah tried to begin on a higher rung and got stricken with fear of missing out. I have life-long sympathies with Leah or I couldn’t have written it. And Rachel was always deeply sympathetic toward her sister too.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks for explaining the brown scapular epigraph, and I’m glad SCP published the poem with it, so that you could have your definitive version online. Thanks as well for explicating Leah and Rachel as a “lens for the feminine dilemma.” I certainly understand what you mean. And I hope that your companions from idyllic times will be gathered again in the felicity of fellow feeling.

      Reply
  9. Cynthia Erlandson

    These are all so very beautiful, Monika! I recall having read “Something Higher” when you won the Catholic Literary Arts contest. It is a marvelous re-telling of Elijah and Elisha’s moving story. In “Reading in Rome”, I really love the first stanza’s description of the scene, particularly your use of “ruly”, which is quite attention-grabbing, since it seems we normally only hear “unruly”. (kind of like the word ‘unwieldy’.) “Steel sharpens steel and hill to hilltop howls” immediately echoed “Iron sharpens iron”, and “Deep calls unto deep” in my mind’s ear. I really enjoyed “Letters and Signs”, as well. You are a magnificent poet!

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Thank you, Cynthia. I’m so glad all those resonances were audible in your reading. Exchange of friendly fire and academic arguments with friends prepare us for more serious warfare, like the Proverb implies.

      Words like “unruly,” “unwieldly,” are such curiosities. “Disgruntled” is another because when is anyone ever “gruntled”? I guess that would have to be a good thing, or sort of: a kind of pig-like contentment, perhaps?

      Reply
  10. Jeanna Cooper

    I love how you used Wilbur’s line in the second stanza. I don’t know if I would have noticed it, it fits so well. And the last line of that stanza, “How much our battles issue from our idylls.” is my favorite. The poem brings me right back to studying in Rome. The last three lines:

    For respite from philosophy’s fine printing,
    I pressed the lids and deep behind my eyes
    Sprang rainbowed leopards from a darker age.

    are at once surprising, peaceful, tense and bright. I always love your imagery – here the rainbowed leopards are enchanting. I imagined medieval marginalia leaping into sight.

    Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Jeanna! I only recently saw your wonderful comment. Thank you for letting me know how the final image of “Reading in Rome” impressed you; I love it. I was always looking for the infra- and ultra-rational notes in philosophy.

      Reply

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