Babel
Shall I tell you why,
Despite ambitious dreams and schemes,
The sons of men will never reach the sky?
It is because they cannot understand each other;
Because they cannot rise above
The individual aims in which they smother
Their universal love.
We speak a different language, even when a word
May sound identical, it holds a different meaning
For almost every man, and it is heard
Through different drums that slant and set it leaning.
Babel is no fairy tale.
In vain will be the labour of his hand
Until Man solves the problem: he will fail
Until he speaks a language all can understand,
Deeper than words; until we realize
No man or nation building alone can reach the skies.
Dorothea Spears
Back to nature
I have come back to you, demanding nothing;
Weary, depressed, despairing of mankind
So blind we cannot feel, we cannot find
Behind the individual ego's aim,
The individual nation's aspirations,
The vaster pattern of humanity,
The sanity above our separations:
The whore of war is hammering on the door
Of the world once more, and greed is raping need.
Weary of body and wearier still of mind
I have come back to you to find again
The peace I knew, and the faith in my fellow men.
Dorothea Spears
Background
The violent background music of this age
Is turned too high. The unaccustomed ear
Cannot distinguish the words of the mind, nor hear
The subtle nuances of tone that gauge
Importances and honesties. They wage
A losing battle in this atmosphere
Of blatant beats and blares that interfere
With clear discrimination’s heritage.
How can we find meaning when the word
Is blurred behind this resonance of sound
That wraps us round throughout the night and day?
How can the thought of another life be heard
Above the trumpets and guns, or soul be found…
When words are drowned, how understand the play?
Constantia C.P.
Beauty has grey eyes
Beauty for me has grey eyes.
I tire of too beguiling
Eyes that are always smiling.
And days too hard and bright
For me hold small delight.
I love the quietly wise
And cool grey scrutiny of autumn skies.
Dorothea Spears
Beauty is Too Brief to Waste
Too brief the beauty. Oh! Too brief for sight
The swift ephemerality of light,
Too soon the scented season of the rose,
The folded bud that breaks and blows, and goes.
Too brief . . . too brief the dawn, the dew, the day,
The moon and the stars, and the quiet flight of night;
The years of a dog, and love, and life - that stay
A moment and pass and vanish. We betray
The transitory moment and who can say
How transitory?
This is the prayer I pray:
Lord, let no beauty go unsung, no bliss,
However brief, and let me miss no kiss
Of Thine while occupied with other things,
Lest earth should atrophy my unused wings.
Dorothea Spears
Beauty Starved
Within a world of plenty
And more, who cares, who knows,
As long as the stomach is full, that we starve
For the scent of a living rose?
Or that we die of hunger
For the song of a skylark springing
From earth to heaven in ecstasy?
Or a lovely voice singing?
Men pass by bread with beauty
For caviar with a queen:
No wonder the spirit is under-fed;
No wonder the soul is lean.
If Fate be unrelenting
And only the one may thrive –
Give me courage to starve my flesh
And keep my soul alive!
Because You Loved Me
Because you loved me: what, so small a thing
Could turn the dearth of Winter into a radiant Spring?
Could make the sun shine bright, buds burst,
And birdlings sing – So small a thing?
Because you have forgotten: what, just this
Can rob a radiant world of all its throbbing bliss;
Denude the Spring of beauty, steal the sun’s warm kiss-
Just this? …Just this!
BEETHOVEN’S THIRD
How hopeless I am, vainly trying to capture
With words the sudden, unexpected flight
Of spirit, borne unstriving to the height
Of bliss, vertiginous with breathless rapture,
On some pure strain of austere music rising
Into the sexlessness of sheer delight,
Unhampered, as a wind-borne feather light,
The inertia of the wondering flesh surprising.
If Heaven be like this ascent of soul
On wings of Music, effortlessly flying
Above white clouds, this hunger satisfying,
This life intensified, this aureole -
If this be foretaste of the spirit’s goal,
This ecstasy, then I shall not fear dying!
Before Eve
I work in the garden, and wonder . . .
Before Eve ate the apple
of the knowledge of evil and good,
Before the angel with the flaming sword
Was set to guard the gate
Of Eden, where Adam had walked with the Lord
In the cool of the day: before Fate
In the form of a serpent interfered
In the way we have heard.
Was there mole or snail or cutworm
Or aphid or butcher bird?
And what did the lion feed upon to satisfy his need?
I work in the garden, and wonder . . .
Were there weeds to seed?
Dorothea Spears
Before Rain (Bloemfontein)
In Bloemfontein the other day,
Walking down Maitland Street,
I chanced to look up heaven way
And suddenly stayed my feet.
So fair a picture met my eyes
I gasped in pure delight
For never had I bluer skies
Or clouds of sheerer white!
Like unbelievable puffs of down
Suspended against the blue
Above the streets of the drowsy town
And over the grim karoo
They poised in motionless ecstasy
On a painted heaven limned
The whole of a summer’s afternoon
Till the shadows of evening dimmed
Their lustrous silver. The dying sun
With a final parting wink,
Sent out a million rays to run
And powder them all to pink.
Begetting
To be a birth there must be a begetting;
Immaculate, perhaps. but there must be
Begetting, a preparation and a setting
For concupiscent immortality.
Within the manifested form of mind
Or any substance to achieve a birth
There must be an acceptance, a defined
Contactual point to vivify this earth.
There must be a conception for creation,
A spark that fathers the innate desire.
Resemblances revealing derivation,
Developing. disclose the latent sire.
It's the begetting sets the pattern firm
And gods are not begot from devils' sperm.
Behold the Gothic Poplar Trees
Behold the gothic poplar trees of Lombardy and Chili
Tapering heavenward their slender spires
Yet giving ear to every nomad breeze
That loiters down the valley
Laden with desires.
The oak and eucalyptus trees
And proud unbending pine stand
In dignified aloofness while the pale
And ghostly zephyrs stand alone
And when the dark-browed gale
Storms across the hill
The pines resist; the oak trees fight and fill
The troubled air with clamour…
The poplars bow their heads until the storm is past.
Words tremble in the air by silence spoken –
“They who bend before the blast
After the storm rise up again unbroken.”
Belief in rainbows
Because I find it easy to believe
In miracles; because I know
How gullible the heart is
I tell myself that I must go
Warily, lest I deceive
Myself with symbols: charily
Lest I should find the mind
Inclined to weave
A fabric of philosophy
That will not bear
The wear and tear of every day,
Lest I should choose to use
Too many golden threads, and blue
And green and rose, and lay the gray
And dark and dingy colours by.
We must keep a watchful eye
Upon ourselves, who play
With rainbows, dreaming of universality -
But suppose the heart knows
And the rainbow is the reality?
Dorothea Spears
Bereft
The rain falls softly, and the wind is crying
With muted sobbing, like a child that fears
The dark. The low sad notes of doves replying
Drip disconsolately on the ears
That hide and listen in the dim places
Of the woods: and all the lovely faces
Of the flowers are wet with tears.
Tristful branches droop their leaves and sigh
And curious eyes peep through the fern laces,
Setting a-quiver hosts of glittering spears,
And hidden ears prick sharply, questing why
One lonely pair of footsteps slowly paces
Where two have walked together through the years.
Bethlehem in Africa
How far is it from Africa
To Bethlehem, on Christmas day?
From anywhere to Bethlehem
Is never very far away
On Christmas day, they say, they say.
How far the shepherds and the Star;
How far the manger and the stall
From where the gold and diamonds are?
At Christmas time not far at all
And any one may call, may call.
How far the miracle, the birth?
As near as love; as far as fear.
In every corner of the earth
When Christmas brings the time of year
Bethlehem is here, is here,
And hearts of men wherever they be
Can hear the heavenly choirs still
And share in this nativity
Of peace on earth to men of goodwill . . .
Peace to men of goodwill. Goodwill!
Dorothea Spears
Better to have Loved and Lost –
Do not mourn, Old Timer, you and I
Have had Constantia at its burnished best.
Everything that ever lived must die;
The search for beauty is a ceaseless quest.
The steel destroyers have not reached me yet.
In my Constantia, still, is precious peace
That I am loth to lose. Lest I forget
I live it deeply, daily, till it cease.
Tomorrow’s newcomers will never know
Constantia as we knew it, never see
The open view, the vineyards all a-glow,
The loveliness that lived for you and me.
Surely we have cause for grateful praise
That we have shared the valley’s dearest days.
Constantia, C.P.
Big Tree − Tzitzikama
Another passing traveller I stand,
A transient form before this towering tree.
Serenity and silence circle me,
And time is telescoped: upon the strand
Of vaster oceans, Pebbles in my hand
I tempt the waves that lap eternity
Surmising whence they come and what might be
The meaning of that ocean, of this land.
Two thousand years ago this tree was. young
(Ere Jesus planted Christianity,
They say) but who beheld it no one knows.
Two thousand years is but a pebble flung
Upon the timeless tidal shore of me
By inconceivable life which ebbs and flows.
Dorothea Spears.
Bird of Joy
Not for myself, Master…not for me.
Let me handle this bird of Joy delicately
Nor brush the bloom from its iridescent wing,
And let me send it into the world to sing
Those who need its singing more that I
May see it soar against the sombre sky
And hear it sing above the winds of strife,
The love of God, this beauty of all Life:
Let Joy home softly in my heart, and then
Fly singing into the wounded hearts of men.
Veritas
Constantia, C.P.
Birthday Eve
Tomorrow, or tomorrow and who knows
Into what flower this wee bud will unclose –
The shrinking violet, the lily pure,
The wayward daisy, or the haughty rose?
For nine long months this bud of life has grown
Beneath my heart, from tiny seeds love-sown,
And I have loved and sheltered it, yet known
That one day it must face the light alone;
And of those weary months the flower face,
The mind, the body, may preserve no trace;
This bud that was so long a part of me
May flower with a strange and alien grace.
In Nature’s garden, rose begets the rose,
But in the plot of human life – Who knows?
Blackbird in Winter
Will it be spring when you start to sing
For us again, my silent friend?
You come to fetch your daily bread
With sparrow and thrush and robin and tit
And finch and wren who all descend
And clear the table in a trice.
I fear that everybody’s bit
Is very small, but better than none
At all, I suppose…And now you sit
On the garden wall looking tall
And sleek with your bright yellow beak
And a shining coat of yet, but speak
No word, no syllable of song.
Do you, too find the winter long?
I remember the days so well
When all the garden and all the air
Seemed to throb and pulse and swell
With your sweet singing everywhere!
This grey season has many signs
In dormant sap and dormant seed
But in your silence is winter indeed.
BFH 20.2.73
Blue Kingfisher
How can a day beginning with a blue Kingfisher fail to be fair?
A blue Kingfisher, poised by the pool for long enough to impress
Its vivid image indelibly on beauty-receptive mind;
Indelible the flash of blue in the quivering air
(The colour of happiness) vibrating there
By the pool for joyous senses to find −
Today, and tomorrow . . . and always
and everywhere.
Dorothea Spears
Blue Print
Man ponders on the microcosm, reads
As best he may the secrets hid therein,
Seeking illumination for his needs
From Christ the Soul. His end, his origin,
All things are written in this baffling tome
For him who can unlock the cryptic phrase,
The shape of things gone by and things to come,
The secret of creation’s seven days.
Man ponders, dreams this planet well might be
A greater microcosm, and its goal
The same well-ordered life of unity,
Of cells co-operating in a whole:
The greater in the less: concealed in man
The blue-print of Creation’s Master Plan.
“Veritas”
Constantia, C.P.
Body Corporate
This is the thing that we have got to learn –
It’s that humanity is one humanity,
One corporate body straddling this our earth.
And if it stubs its toe in Asia or Japan
Or gets its bottom smacked in Africa
Or chokes itself on gold in the U.S.A
It’s everybody’s business
Because everybody is a part of it,
This gangling unco-ordinated
Body of humanity.
There’s no such thing as a “domestic issue”.
There’s nothing to do with a part of humanity
That doesn’t concern the whole.
What I mean to say is this –
A hand isn’t a foot and a head isn’t a solar plexus
And they don’t belong in the same place or fulfil the same function
But it’s essential that each should be
Fulfilling healthily the various roles
If we’re to have a healthy body.
I mean to say – it’s not much good
Keep the head clean if the feet stink.
Well there it is
That’s why I say
There’s not a single solitary thing about humanity
That doesn’t concern humanity.
And it’s no good trying to fool ourselves
Into believing anything else because it suits
Our selfish cock-eyed ends.
Veritas
Constantia, C.P.
Bok-Ma-Kirie
He was still warm against my hand.
He must have died by now.
I cannot tell you how –
I do not understand.
I found him lying on the grass:
Perhaps he had struck the wire above
Trying to pass.
He is so beautiful…
His throat is bright and gold,
His collar velvet black;
He wears an olive coat
Upon his sleek back.
It must have been his note
That woke this day,
Repeated over and over again
So full of life, so gay.
He is so beautiful…
His head is soft and grey
With golden stripes above each eye
And gold under his tale.
He was too beautiful to die!
Airlie Close
Constantia C.P.
Brief Now
Is there any fairer thing than this,
The brief perfection of a perfect rose?
Is there any rarer wing to miss
Than velvet petals poising to unclose?
But yesterday this bud of beauty broke
The fastening that held this moment's bright
And brief delight and this perfection woke
And entered in this now of centred sight.
Tomorrow may within a single hour −
Perfection will have passed, the moment gone
And I shall wonder that a single flower
Could so enthrall the heart it breathed upon.
Yet, knowing this I shall surrender still
To this brief now that Beauty stoops to fill.
Dorothea Spears
But Only Through Humility
This Is the hour for prayer and meditation
Together let us join with one accord
To call upon our mediating Lord
Whatever be our creed or race or station.
Could we unself ourselves in this 0
The unimpeded channel might −
A path for Spirit's liberating Sword
To free the soul of our unhappy nation.
Could we relax this physical body, bind
This turbulent ocean of emotion till
It mirrors heaven in its surface, still
This arrogant, questing, self-important mind −
In the ensuing silence we might find
The finite pattern of His Infinite Will.
Dorothea Spears
But Summer Reigns. . .
Lamenting Summer, being Winter-wise −
(How still, how strangely still the poplars stand!)
Autumn has loosed her sister Summer's hand
And parting tears are brimming in her eyes.
How silent are the soft, uncertain skies!
Does Nature know, when Autumn takes command,
That Spring is regnant in another land,
Watching the changing scene as Summer flies?
Tomorrow stormy winds will venture forth
And myriad migrant birds on northward wing,
For short, how short, is vivid Autumn's stay
When exiled Summer silently journeys north.
Does Nature know, who crowns cold Winter King,
That Summer reigns but half a world away?
Dorothea Spears