poem collection #2: the roofs of neuchâtel
part 1: living
Commentary
Grouping poems under more or less arbitrary categories after the fact of their writing is risky business, inasmuch as another probably would have done differently. Still I have done as I have in an attempt to share with the reader more than the poems themselves standing alone might convey.
Living, to my mind, is meaningful existence over time. Inasmuch as what I have written is highly personal, I thought it only appropriate to open with a few words relating the family Borel-Jaquet to the place of its recorded origins; namely, Canton Neuchâtel in the northwestern part of Switzerland, not far from the frontier of France, both areas thus sharing a common language. And then, episodically, to pause along the way covering the fourscore plus years of my life.
Of the poems in this category, four are truly occasional poems in that they were written for special occasions celebrated by family members or friends. These, with minor variations, have been rerun a good many times, to use the vernacular. But recipients apparently have thought well enough of them to have them framed and hung, graciously calling my attention to same during visits. I speak here of personalized versions of Church Wedding, Golden Anniversary, Birth, and even Taps, the original poem having been written for the late General Harold Roe Bull, who served as General Eisenhower's G-3 (Operations) at Supreme Headquarters during World War II, and who was Commandant of the National War College at the time I attended during the academic year 1949-50 representing CIA. On retirement from the Army, Bull joined CIA where we became close friends. The full poem, which runs several stanzas, was later reprinted in the West Point Assembly, where biographical pieces of deceased Academy graduates find their way.
Seeker and The Collect relate to activity of the Village Chapel of Pinehurst, the church my wife and I joined when we moved to the Sandhills region of North Carolina in November 1991. The Chapel has a number of activities and publications to which I am on occasion asked to contribute. One organization is The Women of the Chapel, which sought to have its own Collect, offered as prayer for opening each assembly. I complied with the request by writing three versions, characterizing them in my response as follows:
"One verse is short and straightforward, cast I would say in the modern idiom. Another expands on this and, as well, includes language more traditionally associated with much of church ritual. The third is quite a departure, being in the form of a sonnet, and covering still more ground."
The ladies chose as their Official Collect the short version, explaining they had done so "because it would be more easily memorized"! In this collection, I have included the long and the short versions.
The thought for Paying the Piper must be one shared by any thinking person aware of the obscene multiplication of easy credit leading to senseless buying, often by those who can least afford the purchase of needless goods. Crystallization came in Bern, Switzerland, when seeing the statue of The Piper atop a column on the main thoroughfare. The wonderful old homes that line this street were once occupied by patrician families, but now house first class shops. This is not far from where the American Legation stood in World War I, when Allen Dulles, later my chief at CIA, but then a junior member of the Legation staff, signed the passports which enabled our family to emigrate from Switzerland to the United States in October, 1917.
PAB 1996
Grouping poems under more or less arbitrary categories after the fact of their writing is risky business, inasmuch as another probably would have done differently. Still I have done as I have in an attempt to share with the reader more than the poems themselves standing alone might convey.
Living, to my mind, is meaningful existence over time. Inasmuch as what I have written is highly personal, I thought it only appropriate to open with a few words relating the family Borel-Jaquet to the place of its recorded origins; namely, Canton Neuchâtel in the northwestern part of Switzerland, not far from the frontier of France, both areas thus sharing a common language. And then, episodically, to pause along the way covering the fourscore plus years of my life.
Of the poems in this category, four are truly occasional poems in that they were written for special occasions celebrated by family members or friends. These, with minor variations, have been rerun a good many times, to use the vernacular. But recipients apparently have thought well enough of them to have them framed and hung, graciously calling my attention to same during visits. I speak here of personalized versions of Church Wedding, Golden Anniversary, Birth, and even Taps, the original poem having been written for the late General Harold Roe Bull, who served as General Eisenhower's G-3 (Operations) at Supreme Headquarters during World War II, and who was Commandant of the National War College at the time I attended during the academic year 1949-50 representing CIA. On retirement from the Army, Bull joined CIA where we became close friends. The full poem, which runs several stanzas, was later reprinted in the West Point Assembly, where biographical pieces of deceased Academy graduates find their way.
Seeker and The Collect relate to activity of the Village Chapel of Pinehurst, the church my wife and I joined when we moved to the Sandhills region of North Carolina in November 1991. The Chapel has a number of activities and publications to which I am on occasion asked to contribute. One organization is The Women of the Chapel, which sought to have its own Collect, offered as prayer for opening each assembly. I complied with the request by writing three versions, characterizing them in my response as follows:
"One verse is short and straightforward, cast I would say in the modern idiom. Another expands on this and, as well, includes language more traditionally associated with much of church ritual. The third is quite a departure, being in the form of a sonnet, and covering still more ground."
The ladies chose as their Official Collect the short version, explaining they had done so "because it would be more easily memorized"! In this collection, I have included the long and the short versions.
The thought for Paying the Piper must be one shared by any thinking person aware of the obscene multiplication of easy credit leading to senseless buying, often by those who can least afford the purchase of needless goods. Crystallization came in Bern, Switzerland, when seeing the statue of The Piper atop a column on the main thoroughfare. The wonderful old homes that line this street were once occupied by patrician families, but now house first class shops. This is not far from where the American Legation stood in World War I, when Allen Dulles, later my chief at CIA, but then a junior member of the Legation staff, signed the passports which enabled our family to emigrate from Switzerland to the United States in October, 1917.
PAB 1996
The Roofs of Neuchâtel
Thereunder lived and died through centuries past
Those of my blood who came before:
Teachers, farmers, makers of clock and watch,
Machinists, lawyers, Cantonal functionaries,
The bourgeosie of this once princely realm.
What would they say if they but spoke today?
Birth
Gift of life from heaven sent
Target of our love to be
Nature's pure ennoblement
Making us a family
The Collect I
Our Father who in highest heaven art
We here assembled humbly seek thine aid
Beseeching blessed healing of the heart
That we in turn may holier be made
And so on earth thy working hands become
The instruments of easing others' pain
To evil fight and never to succumb
But rather strive to glorify thy reign
When prone to flag we'll turn to what you teach
We know that with our hand secure in thine
Beyond the limits we alone can reach
We may yet grasp the rays all suns outshine
Thus bringing light where darkness now resides
Thus bringing joy where sorrow now abides
Church Wedding
Now we are met at this most holy place
Each to the other sacred vows to pledge
Where we have come to seek sufficient grace
That in these presents what we now allege
May in full measure yield our mind's desire:
To share with one another all we are
In heart and hearth to keep a living fire
And thus to reach and grasp the brightest star;
The while our goodly heritage preserve
To jointly for the future keep the past
In all we do to nobly help and serve
Our bright and shining idyll to hold fast
Forsaking self to gain the greater prize
Unto the golden sunset of our lives.
The Calming Hours
As pass the days so turn the leaves
To show their colors bright
Matching the fabric of the life she weaves
And placing gentle hand in mine
It makes it right
To count the splendid years sublime
Golden Anniversary
Two score ten years it has been
Since you spoke the marriage vows
Each one pledging to invest in
All the joys that life allows
Time has brought you much that's good
And perhaps a tear or two
When your loving family would
Join with friends to stand by you
Standing high forever leading
Never for good cause remiss
Of selves sharing gifts exceeding
We who love you wish you this:
May the days ahead be bright
Let the age-old promise shine
As you day to day recite
I am yours and you are mine
Seeker
Come to the Chapel
There's a welcome for you
Who ceaselessly grapple
With hurts old and new
No never a need
To go it alone
When helpless just heed
The One we have known
He's quick to forgive
Whatever you've done
You'll learn how to live
If you follow the Son
For under the Cross
You'll find friends who care
While seeking like you
Your burdens will share
The Collect II
Father of us all, in whose name we here assemble
We seek divine guidance of what we shall say and do
Praying we may from this time and place
Go forth to bless others, even as you have blessed us
The while keep each within your healing presence
Until by grace we meet again. Amen
Paying the Piper
Throughout the course of living out our lives
How prone we are to satisfy a thirst
Unthinking that when morrow's bill arrives
The shining bubble bought by then has burst
With precious gold we do not have we buy
The empty promised thrill we do not need
With fate we seal a bargain to comply
With strictest terms we never plan to heed
You who in Hamlin played play for us still
We too have rats, though of another strain
And children aping grownups without will
Now follow false notes to be lost again
Yes, those who ask to have the piper play
Must then, invariably, the piper pay
Of Time
Time was we had no need to run full-tilt
As now. But lazed in warmth of sun-filled lea
When we in mind those lofty castles built
And once-upon-a-Time (we thought) would endless be
Now heartless pounding of each second's tick
Moves seasons mindless of man's rude excesses
And on her midnight watch, Ole Time, so quick,
Tomorrow into Yesterdays expresses
Last second's tick and reckoning of our days shall be
The sweet abyss of Time we call Eternity
Taps
In Arlington we gathered round
As winds and chill impressed
Where heroes lie beneath the ground
We lay him to his rest
The call to muster sounds again
The last salute to give
For us the memories remain
To light the life we live
Thereunder lived and died through centuries past
Those of my blood who came before:
Teachers, farmers, makers of clock and watch,
Machinists, lawyers, Cantonal functionaries,
The bourgeosie of this once princely realm.
What would they say if they but spoke today?
Birth
Gift of life from heaven sent
Target of our love to be
Nature's pure ennoblement
Making us a family
The Collect I
Our Father who in highest heaven art
We here assembled humbly seek thine aid
Beseeching blessed healing of the heart
That we in turn may holier be made
And so on earth thy working hands become
The instruments of easing others' pain
To evil fight and never to succumb
But rather strive to glorify thy reign
When prone to flag we'll turn to what you teach
We know that with our hand secure in thine
Beyond the limits we alone can reach
We may yet grasp the rays all suns outshine
Thus bringing light where darkness now resides
Thus bringing joy where sorrow now abides
Church Wedding
Now we are met at this most holy place
Each to the other sacred vows to pledge
Where we have come to seek sufficient grace
That in these presents what we now allege
May in full measure yield our mind's desire:
To share with one another all we are
In heart and hearth to keep a living fire
And thus to reach and grasp the brightest star;
The while our goodly heritage preserve
To jointly for the future keep the past
In all we do to nobly help and serve
Our bright and shining idyll to hold fast
Forsaking self to gain the greater prize
Unto the golden sunset of our lives.
The Calming Hours
As pass the days so turn the leaves
To show their colors bright
Matching the fabric of the life she weaves
And placing gentle hand in mine
It makes it right
To count the splendid years sublime
Golden Anniversary
Two score ten years it has been
Since you spoke the marriage vows
Each one pledging to invest in
All the joys that life allows
Time has brought you much that's good
And perhaps a tear or two
When your loving family would
Join with friends to stand by you
Standing high forever leading
Never for good cause remiss
Of selves sharing gifts exceeding
We who love you wish you this:
May the days ahead be bright
Let the age-old promise shine
As you day to day recite
I am yours and you are mine
Seeker
Come to the Chapel
There's a welcome for you
Who ceaselessly grapple
With hurts old and new
No never a need
To go it alone
When helpless just heed
The One we have known
He's quick to forgive
Whatever you've done
You'll learn how to live
If you follow the Son
For under the Cross
You'll find friends who care
While seeking like you
Your burdens will share
The Collect II
Father of us all, in whose name we here assemble
We seek divine guidance of what we shall say and do
Praying we may from this time and place
Go forth to bless others, even as you have blessed us
The while keep each within your healing presence
Until by grace we meet again. Amen
Paying the Piper
Throughout the course of living out our lives
How prone we are to satisfy a thirst
Unthinking that when morrow's bill arrives
The shining bubble bought by then has burst
With precious gold we do not have we buy
The empty promised thrill we do not need
With fate we seal a bargain to comply
With strictest terms we never plan to heed
You who in Hamlin played play for us still
We too have rats, though of another strain
And children aping grownups without will
Now follow false notes to be lost again
Yes, those who ask to have the piper play
Must then, invariably, the piper pay
Of Time
Time was we had no need to run full-tilt
As now. But lazed in warmth of sun-filled lea
When we in mind those lofty castles built
And once-upon-a-Time (we thought) would endless be
Now heartless pounding of each second's tick
Moves seasons mindless of man's rude excesses
And on her midnight watch, Ole Time, so quick,
Tomorrow into Yesterdays expresses
Last second's tick and reckoning of our days shall be
The sweet abyss of Time we call Eternity
Taps
In Arlington we gathered round
As winds and chill impressed
Where heroes lie beneath the ground
We lay him to his rest
The call to muster sounds again
The last salute to give
For us the memories remain
To light the life we live
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