.
.

Shoveling Out the Blizzard

Snow came so thick, the roof makes pops and creaks;
downspouts froze solid as cement with ice;
while working on the walk, you’ve fallen twice:
The cold shines through your clothes and sears your cheeks.
.
The roof melt overspilled in crystal fans;
Ice ropes reach three floors to basement stairs;
The slush has clogged the drain and pooled so deep there
trashmen won’t risk the stairs to take the cans.
.
The swirling winds have whipped the drifts waist-deep,
Stranding the building’s old folks helpless here,
Snowed in and scared, until the walk is clear.
And so you work, as twilight shadows creep.
.
Breath short, your arms, your shoulders tired and tight,
tug down your cap, breathe in, and resume the attack.
It’s only you and your complaining back,
And neither end nor simple thanks in sight,
.
So why this satisfaction, this strange deep peace?
To his query, “What, then, is heavenly joy?”
what did Swedenborg’s inspiring angel rejoin?
What words describe this suffering’s release?
.
“Both for oneself and others, to take delight
In doing something useful.” What else suffices,
But serving all, to cure the world’s deep vices?
Through depths of muffling dark, there shines a light.
.
.
.
.

Decisions of Mission

Late in the summer of 1219, Francis of Assisi crossed enemy
lines during the Fifth Crusade, hoping that he could convert
Egypt’s Sultan Malik al-Kamil to Christianity and thereby end
the violence of the Crusade.
.
“If we arrive at our host’s house soaked by the rain, frozen,
muddy, and afflicted with hunger, knock on the door and the
doorkeeper says, “Who are you? I don’t know you!” And he
closes the door in our faces so that we must stay outside all
night long, freezing to death. If we endure this mistreatment
without disquieting ourselves and without murmuring, but
think humbly and charitably about the doorkeeper, believing
that God is in charge. If we bear these injustices patiently
and with cheerfulness, thinking on the sufferings of Christ for
us. O Friar Leo, write it down that here is perfect joy!”
—St. Francis of Assisi
.
Just when’s the time to risk one’s life and limb
to obey the windy will of Elohim?
Say, hand out bibles at madrasa schools
To save their students’ (and their imams’) souls,
as when St. Francis strode that battlefield
to greet Islam with nought but cross as shield,
and bring with peace the sultan’s hordes to Christ,
which Francis tried not once, not twice, but thrice?
.
But what about my duty to my health,
Safeguarding my mind and soul by scorning wealth
to keep my Spirit’s Vessel from harm’s way,
to kneel, abject beside my desk, and pray,
and amass the fruit of quiet contemplation
with disciplined, judicious compilation,
composing, after years where I’ve abstained,
from every vice, a Paradise Regained?
.
But whether we risk body, soul, or mind
or all, Francis tells us we will find
our joy perfected only when we’re mocked
for faith in God, only when others’ talk
vituperates us roundly for our deeds
and judges ours most hateful of all creeds
—when strangers denounce, decry, scheme, and lie
about us, and even friends wish we would die.
.
.
.
.
Adam Wasem is a writer and rare bookseller living in suburban Salt Lake City, Utah.

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14 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    I felt the chill while the sidewalks were shoveled. Your description of the cloying ice was excellent while imparting the message of self-satisfaction at doing something for others. The essence of the second poem furthers that of the first–finding joy even when others mock our efforts. I liked your poems not only for the classically descriptive verses, but for the encouraging messages.

    Reply
    • Adam Wasem

      Thank you very kindly, Roy. I’m glad you felt it viscerally. Without it, the concluding line’s impact is greatly lessened. And I’m further gratified that you picked up on the moral of these poems: True joy comes not from the world, but from above. Hopefully that can be encouraging, as you noted. Heaven knows there’s little enough encouragement in the media these days.

      Reply
  2. Margaret Coats

    Adam, both these poems seem to me carefully designed meditations. When the author works through such a plan of thought to guide the reader, each portion of his work contributes full weight, and ideas do not flow too fast, but neither is the design foremost. I enjoy each stanza, and while each poem has a highly effective flourish to conclude, my favorite expressions come in the middle.

    “The roofmelt overspilled in crystal fans” tells how bitterly cold wind and weather are in “Shoveling Out the Blizzard.” I think I saw fan-shaped ice happen once in my eleven years of snow country. The line shows this is a progressive, not a static, description of frozen atmosphere, physically and morally. You arrive at the moral gradually. It slides in, rather than being tacked on. And it’s a simple answer to an intriguing question. “Depths of muffling dark” echoes “deep vices,” and “light” as final word echoes and explains “delight” earlier. I wish you would regularize rhythms a bit more; you could do it with insignificant additions or subtractions of syllables, and in my opinion, it would benefit perception of meaning by eliminating metrical distractions.

    The Saint Francis poem treats a similar subject from a more exalted level. What is the virtue and value of highest humility? I like the inset objection of the second stanza, in particular its last two lines:

    composing, after years where I’ve abstained,
    from every vice, a Paradise Regained.

    An epic in itself. Yes, the ideas do not flow too fast. The risks and the perfection outlined in the final stanza reach out toward the top of the spiritual mountain. Even where readers are willing to listen to this kind of discourse, many may find the air too ethereal and ignore it. I’ll imply my appreciation with another Saint Francis story–the little poor man’s meeting with Pope Innocent III. What a contrast between the humble friar and the most powerful and influential of medieval pontiffs! Yet Innocent took the initiative to embrace Francis. We need them both in the Body of Christ. And we need poetry like what you present today, Adam. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Adam Wasem

      Thank you, Margaret. The careful design you are sensing may just be the fortunate intercession of the Spirit on my behalf. I wrote the initial drafts of these sometime ago, in my early-to-mid thirties, and they both came out in a rush of inspiration–each one in a matter of a few hours, as I recall. I can hardly take credit for the morals, either, as they are just my own gloss on some truths I have gleaned in my readings of the historical Christian greats. Standing on the shoulders of giants, as it were. It is true, I have revised each substantially since then, but mainly to refine them aesthetically, grammatically and metrically.

      I’m happy you emphasized that the ideas don’t flow too fast. The extensive enjambment in the final stanza is meant to push the reader along and maximize the impact of the final line, and I’m happy to hear the push was not too overbearing.

      The metrical irregularity you reference may be my prosaic bias. I originally set out to be a short story writer and novelist, and those biases no doubt often creep into my verse, particularly the narrative verse. Also, I’m fairly certain I’m not as focused on perfect prosodic and metrical regularity as most are here. Perfect meter and rhyme are great poetic virtues, perhaps the greatest, but there are many others, and I enjoy Eliot as much as I do Frost. If I can get the meter and the rhyme good enough to say what needs to be said, then that’s good enough for me. I am working on it, however, and as many have said, a poem is never finished, the writer just gets tired of working on it.

      Reply
  3. Paul A. Freeman

    Just as Roy says, I could feel the cold (partly nostalgia, perhaps) as I read Shoveling Out the Blizzard, here, in a desert environment. Your poem carries not only a plethora of visual imagery, but tactile imagery – Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

    I’ve written a lot of medieval verse in the past, quite a bit of it set during the Crusades, so it was great to read about Francis of Assisi crossing the Muslim lines.

    Thanks for the reads, Adam.

    Reply
    • Adam Wasem

      You’re very welcome, Paul. I’m glad you felt the chill. Evoking it was pretty easy, when 40-odd Chicago winters have drilled that chill into your bones. Reworking it was nicely nostalgic for me as well, now that I’ve migrated to Salt Lake City. The natives here lament the terrible winters and I have to ask, “What winters?” Granted, it’s only been two so far, but I think I’ve only taken my light parka out once.

      And I hope you publish some of your Crusades verse here. Heaven knows they’ve been dreadfully mischaracterized for decades and could use some intelligent and evenhanded treatment for once. I’d be interested to see how you handle them.

      Reply
  4. Shamik Banerjee

    Your poems have moved me, Adam. I started dabbling in the life and teachings of Swedenborg recently, and what a great surprise it was to see his name in “Shovelling the Blizzard”. I love every image, and I think each, in its own way, describes the intensity of the cold. “Frozen downspouts”, “trash men not risking the stairs” and other such instances are really excellent. The message here can inspire anyone to do little (if not big) acts of selfless service to humankind. Your second poem is definitely very thought-provoking. Although I do not know much about St. Francis except that he was the first stigmatist ever, I am thankful to you for bringing me to this wealth. What a statement! Our joy is perfected only the world has turned against us for our faith in God. Thank you so much for these poems!

    Reply
  6. Adam Wasem

    You’re very welcome, Shamik. I’m delighted to hear you were moved. I was greatly moved, myself, by both of these men, and these poems are my way of paying it forward, so to speak.

    Ever since I read about him in Saul Bellow’s work and picked up a set of a number of his major works, including Heaven and Hell, True Christian Religion, and several others, I’ve been fascinated by Swedenborg. I found him to be a Christian visionary in the truest sense of the word, up there with Milton and John of Padmos. It seemed fitting, in my own small way, to express my appreciation for a Swedish Christian philosopher, in a poem about the joy in the bitterest of toil in the bitterest depths of winter.

    Saint Francis was a medieval monk who is extraordinarily revered, as doing more, both through his own actions and through the founding of his eponymous order, to bring the Catholic church back to its ascetic roots than likely any other Catholic of the time. As a Christian, I feel it as my duty to both remind others of crucial Christian lessons of the past, while at the same time refining and updating them for clarity’s sake to contemporaries. And also being willing to transmit the starkest of truths when called for. I’m glad you found them as inspiring as I did.

    Reply
  7. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Adam, these poems speak to me from many perspectives. Having cleared pathways of freshly fallen snow with ice beneath, your descriptions in “Shoveling Out the Blizzard” speak to me in poetry that stirs those memories all too vividly. Great stuff!

    I really like how both poems connect in dealing with the subject of the joy of assisting others. I especially like the closing stanza of “Decisions of Mission.” In hateful days where loneliness is rife, how many would put God’s truth above all else? How many would choose to lose all around them in the name of God? I often ask myself how far I would be willing to go. This gives me great admiration for the saints. Adam, your poems spur me on. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Adam Wasem

      That I could convey the toil and suffering “all too vividly” to a wordsmith so accomplished is high praise indeed; my deepest thanks. And of course you lasered right in on my intended theme; I submitted these two to Evan as “Two Poems on Heavenly Joy.” And you’re right on about the closing stanza of “Decisions.” That stanza was a gift, as I recall. Line after line just kept effortlessly coming, relentlessly building momentum the whole way. It was like taking dictation. I’m deeply gratified that it inspired such reflection in you, such admiration for the saints, and even more that it helps spur you on. For what are we really here for if not to spur each other on to get the truth out? I, too, often ask myself how far I would be willing to go, as doubtless any Christian does. What better way to express that self-examination than in poetry?

      Reply
  8. Brian A. Yapko

    These are both excellent poems, Adam, which I’m only now getting the chance to enjoy. Your “Blizzard” poem is funny but it is also philosophically elevated by the reference to Swedenborg. It’s a very clever broadening of the big picture. Or, at least, a bit of philosophic fuel to keep the speaker moving forward. And I must confess that my back aches a little just reading this work.

    Your St. Francis poem is deeper, inspiring and somewhat disturbing. I’m no ascetic. I’m not great at accepting abuse and smiling beatifically. And yet your poem says more than simply “turn the other cheek.” It elevates Christic willingness to suffer abuse to the very highest of spiritual planes. It finds dignity despite the mocking of others — perhaps even because of it. Your reading of St. Francis is unmistakable: we are asked to become the flogged Christ. That is one tall order. You make me also think of Viktor Frankl and Man’s Search for Meaning. Suffering does indeed have meaning, though I would choose to avoid it if I could. I don’t want to accept that this is the reality of life and yet I can’t escape the points your poem contemplates. Suffering is inevitable but what one does with it — ah, that’s where character comes from. If a poem haunts one, Adam, I think that means yours has truly hit the mark.

    Reply
    • Adam Wasem

      There is a touch of slapstick in “Blizzard,” isn’t there, in the comical figure slipping all over the place in his grim determination to fight the titanic elemental forces arrayed against him. Which is part of the point, I suppose. Part of the humor in slapstick comes from the comedian suffering the pratfalls so we don’t have to. I think of Buster Keaton’s suffering stone-faced through the most outlandish disasters in his films. The Swedenborg quote gives it the serious spiritual twist to elevate it above slapstick, as you noted. And it’s good to hear your back aches after reading: If it doesn’t ache a little, I haven’t done my job.

      And I think it’s clear that asceticism has few, if any, takers nowadays. The very concept seems insane to our contemporary culture. But part of my duty as a Christian, as I conceived it long ago, is to face the hard road that being a Christ-follower demands, including being willing to suffer as Christ did. So many New Testament verses talk about not just enduring persecution, but rejoicing in it, as evidence of salvation, and yet it’s exceedingly rare to hear it discussed seriously nowadays, even by other Christians. Personally, I have often pondered the stoning of Saint Stephen in Acts in relation to this, and how the story contrasts the incoherent rage of the Sanhedrin with Stephen’s beatific peace, and just how transformed into a state of Grace he must have been to not only perceive the glory of the Son of Man in the heavens, but to announce it to the crowd that was at that moment readying to stone him to death.

      So, yes, my inescapable conclusion is that Christians have been given quite literally the tallest of tall orders, coming straight down from the Most High Himself. Am I ready to carry out that order, should the time come? I can’t honestly say, but I’d be lying to myself to pretend the order wasn’t given, and a duty of a writer is to be as honest with the reader as he is with himself. So if it’s haunting you, I pray the haunting is by the Holy Ghost.

      Reply
  9. Adam Sedia

    I always enjoy reading your work, Adam. Your earlier comment confirmed for me that your first poem results from the experience of Chicago winters. I know well the toil – and strangely enough the satisfaction – that you describe. You also do an excellent job of capturing those bone-chilling winter scenes.

    But I especially enjoyed your contemplative piece about Saint Francis. In an age that likes to misportray the good saint as some sort of Medieval hippie, official narratives often forget his missions to convert the Muslims in Egypt. What I especially like is your reminder of what it really means to be a follower of Christ, as He reminds us all in his discourse at the Last Supper. I read and reread that passage to remind myself of the Christian’s relationship with the world, and your poem does a good job of personalizing those ideas, making them come alive and revealing the internal thoughts and conflicts they engender.

    Great work.

    Reply

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