With this post, we begin a new series: Verses for Vocation: Poems on the Sacred in Everyday Life and Work. Instead of our usual essay-style blog post, I’ll be sharing an original poem that touches on the presence of the holy in our daily experiences and labors.

I have been hesitant to undertake a poetic series for several reasons. Among my fears is that in sharing my own poetry under the auspices of Mission Central, I am indulging delusions of grandeur: “Behold, the work of the great artist!”

I suppose the temptation to self-aggrandizement has been there in my humdrum prose posts as well. Self-publication always runs the risk of vanity! I don’t want to flatter myself about my abilities as a poet, nor about my abilities as an essayist or simply a blogger for that matter.

On the other hand—and relevantly to Mission Central—writing has always formed and informed my vocation. It’s not just that I feel called to write; it’s that my whole way of grappling with the notion of being called is inextricable from densely intertwined strands of reading, writing, listening, and naming the call in conversation with others. Writing is how I hear the call. As such, leaning into a writerly medium may prove fruitful for conversations about vocation.

But, even if I have satisfied myself that writing poems can serve Mission Central’s vision of “forming Christians for mission in everyday life,” another fear remains. Poetry, perhaps more than other kinds of writing, demands an open heart. Although the best essays often include a measure of self-disclosure and so can also draw out the writer’s vulnerability, poetry through its attention to form implicitly aspires not just to eloquence but also to beauty. In many poems, that beauty can only be realized through emotional openness.

Poetry leaves me no place to hide. When I write a more analytical post, I can at least take shelter in “sounding smart” while I explore the ideas of faith and work. If a certain post doesn’t land with readers, I can write it off as a bit of a dud and move on with my ego mostly intact. But poetic attempts are naked. By aiming not just for conceptual clarity but also for emotional inspiration, a “dud” is so much the more painful. The higher you climb, the harder you fall. 

A final fear comes from my posture as a teacher. I have a bias toward clarity and understanding over elegance of form. Even if I hope my poetry is good enough to share, will it be understood? Will people “get it,” or will the relative obscurity of poetic form make it unhelpful for some readers?

In response to this last fear, I’ve decided to add a few explanatory comments after each poem. Rather than a full explication or commentary, I’ll mostly point out references that not all readers may be familiar with. Poetry is often elusive because it is so allusive; the meaning eludes any reader who does not know the texts to which the poem alludes. I hope my notes will make these connections clearer without being distracting.

[Thanks for reading. This post begins our new series Verses for Vocation: Poems on the Sacred in Everyday Life and Work. Check out our other posts on faith and work and spiritual growth for more resources on living an integrated Christian life. Subscribe to get the next post in your inbox.]

Heal and Hold These Tired Hands

Today’s poem is a villanelle, a tightly rhyming and repeating verse form originating in France and popular in nineteenth and twentieth century England. (A well-known villanelle is Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”) Originally dedicated to pastoral or country themes, it is an appropriate form for meditating on humble, everyday work.

Heal and hold these tired hands

When I touch and type my work today

As the slow-grown fruit of your commands.

When, wide, my heart holds all these strands

In each task will your quick’ning ray

Heal and hold these tired hands.

Swift distraction ever stands

Crouched to turn me, lest I pray

As the slow-grown fruit of your commands.

Quick to fret my hours till evening lands,

I grind the wheat but doubt he may

Heal and hold these tired hands.

Fall fields yield but scorching brands

When labor’s lost and none will stay

As the slow-grown fruit of your commands.

Even so, keep me off spectator stands.

In each day’s efforts, though all cracked clay,

Heal and hold these tired hands

As the slow-grown fruit of your commands.

Explanatory Notes

• “I touch and type my work today”: Touching screens and typing on keyboards are the predominant means of interaction with office work in the digital era. To “type” something is also to categorize it (as in “typology”), so to “type my work today / As the slow-grown fruit of your commands” is to name the work as the fruit of God’s action. 
• “Your quick’ning ray”: An allusion to Charles Wesley’s hymn “And Can It Be?”
• “Crouched to turn me”: An allusion to Genesis 4:7
• “Quick to fret my hours”: An allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth 5.5.24-25, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage”
• “till evening lands”: A reference to the fall of evening, and to the biblical land of darkness and death, e.g. in Psalm 88:12
• “I grind the wheat”: Wheat-grinding is a common form of manual labor, used as an example of daily work by Jesus (Luke 17:34-36). Jesus also employed wheat grain as an image of his and his disciples’ vocation (John 12:23-26).
• “Fall fields yield but scorching brands”: Fall is the harvest season. The “yield” of a crop was also one of Jesus’ metaphors for spiritual fruitfulness (Luke 8:4-15). “Scorching brands” are firebrands (burning organic material), a mark with a branding iron, or, figuratively, the commercial brands that “scorch” modern life.
• “When labor’s lost”: An allusion to the title of Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labour’s Lost, in which several noble young men abandon their commitment to a monkish study regimen
• “though all cracked clay”: An allusion to 2 Corinthians 4:7

Series image: The Stevedores in Arles (Coal Barges) by Vincent van Gogh, 1888.
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