Bragpost: Dappled Things

I have three poems in the new issue of Dappled Things, a journal I really admire that explores issues of faith.

www.dappledthings.org

For those who have stumbled onto this blog and don't particularly like poetry (for example -- my family members, my enemies, and fans of Steely Dan), I'm posting the poem the journal takes its title from.  It's by Gerard Manley Hopkins.  You'll like it!  Well, maybe.  As much as you like anything, you grumpy rascals.


Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.