Of Campfires and Myths

Father Andy Davy, MIC, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Plano, Illinois, also writes poetry. Here, we share some of his work and his commentaries on that work in the latest installment of a weekly series.

A midsummer's night campfire
Take the hand
And Dance!
Dance to the symphony
Within monotony's Land.

Legged Tongues
Scratch!
Scratch the serenade
Faithfully sung.

Pin pricked holes above
Let in mystery
Of the more.
De Sidere of Eros
Fueling the heart
Toward heaven's light.

Heat-filled fangs kiss
Spreading their vampiric appetite.
Drawing substance into airy dry.
Casting wood's soul into the sky.

The opposite of the living dead
Is the Tree:
The Deathlike life.
Stone-crusted,
With innards of Dryad magic.
Sentinels mysteriously alive,
From the inside out.

These occur every day,
A monotony unseen after years.

But from Him who gives
Childlike wonder,
The Dance within monotony begins.

This rather strange poem is an attempt to bring G.K. Chesterton's words to life: " ... the function of imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange; not so much to make wonders facts as to make facts wonders."

The simple campfire we experience is lot more mysterious than it is ordinary. Poetry can help us recover a sacramental vision of the cosmos. Note: "De sidere" is the Latin word for "desire", which literally means "from the stars." Also "Dryads" in classic mythology were the souls of trees that would move through the forest.
CLDPF

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