Daily Signet

Come, let us gather round the table,
light the candles. Steward, pour the wine,
it’s dark outside. The streets are noisy.  Madeleine L’Engle

This call to home…it’s a strong one.
It set Odysseus on his way
on his quest for home,
to the remembrance of first places,
first memories,
of first love, nourishment, grace.
The rich scent and deep color of October is gone, 
and in its place, the air of November is chill, 
thin with its gray veil of sky.
And I hear my mother’s voice, calling me in from play,
“Time to get in…it’s getting dark.”
We are in the year’s fall, and the night is at hand
and almost to “the irrational season”, says Madeleine,
and it’s time for supper.
Life around the table—
setting it, clearing it,
the laying out of quilted colors, 
the bringing in of wood,
the doings of homework—
always preparations for the next day.
We are in the year’s fall, says Hopkins,
and the night is at hand, the year is far spent.
This call to home…it’s a strong one.
It set Odysseus on his way…

Come, let us gather round the table.
Light the candles. Steward pour the wine.
It’s dark outside. The streets are noisy.

Teri Martin

Photo by @bevem on Unsplash

On This Day…

All Souls’ Day: intercessions for the dead, a pagan festival of ancient ancestor worship adopted by Odilo, Abbot of Cluny in 988, commemorating all the faithful departed. 1545 Council of Trent directed that prayers and masses be said for those in limbo (purgatory) and required intercession of the living to complete the purging of their sins.

Odysseus Elytis born in 1911 in Heraklion, Greece: writer and Greek patriot; Nobel Prize winner for literature. Died 3-18-1996
Quotes: “If you deconstruct Greece, you will in the end see an olive tree, a grapevine, and a boat remain. That is, with as much, you reconstruct her.” “If a separate personal Paradise exists for each of us, mine must irreparably be planted with trees of words which the world silvers like poplars, by people who see their confiscated justice given back, and by birds that even in the midst of the truth of death insist in singing in Greek and saying, eros, eros, eros.”