A few people suggested that I post while on my little break so that they could be kept up to date on what I am doing. Please don’t take my silence as a sign of my ignoring your request, take it as a sign that I haven’t been doing much of anything. Auditions start up again the first weekend of January; all I’ve been doing is working on some new rep, starting my training for my next race, and lying on the couch.
I did have a church gig today, and even though they read the shorter option for the Gospel, I’ve still got Anna and Simeon on the brain. In honor of our boy Simeon, here’s some T.S. Eliot:
A Song for Simeon
T.S. Eliot
Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
The stubborn season has made stand.
My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners
Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.
Grant us thy peace.
I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have taken and given honour and ease.
There went never any rejected from my door.
Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children
When the time of sorrow is come ?
They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home,
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.
Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel’s consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.
According to thy word,
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace.
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.
I suppose one of the reasons I so enjoy ol’ Thomas Stearns is that he and I are equally fascinated with the liturgical calendar. See you on Ash Wednesday, T.S.
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