Thursday, June 26, 2008

Oh, the Grand Inelegance of It All...


This poem arrived this morning in Writer's Almanac and it fit so perfectly with things I've been thinking about lately that I had to post it. (Plus it made me laugh.) I am so thankful that God delightedly accepts whatever inelegant, pieced-together, lopsided creations we offer him throughout the day and sees only pure love, radiance, hope, and the faithful heart of the innocense in which they're offered:


Naming the Animals
by Anthony Hecht

Having commanded Adam to bestow
Names upon all the creatures, God withdrew
To empyrean palaces of blue
That warm and windless morning long ago,
And seemed to take no notice of the vexed
Look on the young man's face as he took thought
Of all the miracles the Lord had wrought
Now to be labeled, dubbed, yclept, indexed.

Before an addled mind and puddle brow,
The feathered nation and the finny prey
Passed by; there went biped and quadruped.
Adam looked forth with bottomless dismay
Into the tragic eyes of his first cow,
And shyly ventured, "Thou shalt be called 'Fred.'"

"Naming the Animals" by Anthony Hecht, from Collected Later Poems. © Alfred A Knopf, 2003.

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