Donald Traxler's Poetry

Thursday, July 9, 2020

The Poet at Work

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

We are bodies of light,
and souls of starry night.

itsula gesvase ayelvdi ulvsada,
ale adanvdi noquisihi svnoyi.

ᎢᏧᎳ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎠᏰᎸᏗ ᎤᎸᏌᏓ,
ᎠᎴ ᎠᏓᏅᏗ ᏃᏈᏏᎯ ᏒᏃᏱ.

Nous sommes des corps de lumière,
et des âmes de nuit étoilée.

Somos cuerpos de luz,
y almas de noche estrellada.

Nós somos corpos de luz,
e almas da noite estrelada.

He Is what He Sees

atsvyai gesvase na gowatase,
aseno nasquv siquu.

ᎠᏨᏯᎢ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ Ꮎ ᎪᏩᏔᏎ,
ᎠᏎᏃ ᎾᏍᏋ ᏏᏊ.

He is what he sees,
but also more.

Il est ce qu'il voit,
mais aussi plus.

Él es lo que ve,
pero tambien más.

Ele é o que vê,
mas também mais.

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Change

"I want you to remember that sound," my mother said,
as a steam locomotive blew its full-throated
whistle in the morning distance.

"There aren't very many of those left," she said,
"and soon they will all be gone."

My mother knew that change was coming,
but how much, she didn't know.

Her prediction came true,
and I remember the sound,
but now change is our only hope.

Change is now our only hope.

Monday, July 6, 2020

He Is of the Trees

He is of the trees,
he is of the earth,
part of all he sees,
and not of greater worth.

The nature of which he's part
informs his heart.
He is that which he sees,
he is of the trees.

87,000 Visits and Two Lists

Greetings, gentle readers. We recently passed the milestone of 87,000 visits to this poetry/writing/photography blog. It seems to me out of my control, and I never know what direction it will go in next. In other words, it is free. I have no explanation for anything, and the work will have to speak for itself.

Over the past month, the following were the top ten sources of visits:

USA 774
UK 185
Germany 86
Romania 84
Turkmenistan 66
Vietnam 66
France 61
Canada 48
Crimea 47
Reunion 44

For the same time period, the following were the most-visited posts:

Poet and Machine 15 June 2020 43
uyelvha agadohvsdi 47* 5 January 2019 36
I Drink from the Well 16 June 2020 28
This Body 20 June 2020 27
Do You Mind? 30 June 2020 26
Let Me Tell You Gently 27 June 2020 25
Synoptica XXIX - More Yet on the Beatitudes 12 June 2020 25
A Listing of the Synoptica Series and Related Posts 14 June 2020 24
Missa Aurea II - Fons Vitae, Calix Ignis 25 June 2020 24
The Pater Noster: A Trajectory through Time - Part I 3 July 2020 24

* A frequent visitor seems to have bookmarked this post, and is using it as an entry point to the blog, which skews the totals.

As usual, I would like to thank you all for your continued interest and enthusiasm.

Sunday, July 5, 2020

Further Thoughts on the Pater Noster

Sometimes studying is like meditation. You go deeper and deeper, and you become more calm. It has been this way for me as I researched the roots and development of the Pater Noster.

I think it was about six years ago that I first read the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew. When I read the "Lord's Prayer" (probably in the nineteenth-century translation of Delitzsch), I could not help but be impressed by how Jewish it sounded, and how natural within the context of Judaism. This was especially true of such phrases as "yitqaddash sh'mecho" (may your name be made holy). It sounded familiar to me, but I didn't make the exact connection.

Here are the first words of the Kaddish, which is actually in Palestinian Aramaic:

yitgadal veyitkadash shemé rabá (may his great name be exalted and made holy).

If you read the rest of the Kaddish, you'll see that some of its other themes are also reflected in the Pater Noster.

But some say that the "Our Father" is a boiled-down version of some of the blessings of the Amidah. While I was researching that, I was struck by the similarity of the first part of the Kedushah (the third blessing of the Amidah) to that part of the Catholic Mass called the Sanctus:

SANCTUS, SANCTUS, SANCTUS, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.Hosanna in excelsis.

קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ יהוה צבָאוֹת מְלֹא כָל־הָאָרֵץ כְבוֹדוֹ׃

(qadosh qadosh qadosh adonai tz'vaot m'lo khol-haaretz kh'vodo.)

And when I was researching the Didache (perhaps the first Christian catechism), I found in it The Two Ways, a Jewish teaching document, a scroll of which was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran.

Sometimes there is continuity even when you're not really expecting it, and that is surely the way Rabbi Yeshua would have wanted it.