Dietrich Bonhoeffer*

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) is a German pastor and theologian who was among the earliest critics of the Nazi regime. He was outspoken in his criticism of the leader — even before Hitler came to power — fought against the party’s influence on the German Evangelical Church, opposed such policies as euthanasia and antisemitism, and was connected with the plot to assassinate the Führer.

He was arrested by the Gestapo in April of 1943 — initially charged with conspiring to rescue Jews. The following poem was written in December of 1944, and sent in a letter to his fiancée, Maria von Wedemeyer, as part of a Christmas greeting, from his cell in the basement of the Gestapo prison in Berlin. After that building was destroyed in an air raid he was transferred elsewhere, and eventually to Flossenbürg concentration camp. It was there that he was executed on April 9, 1945, just two weeks before it was liberated by the Allies.

The poem was first published posthumously, by being added to later editions of Bonhoeffer’s 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship. The poem’s translator is Geoffrey Winthrop Young.

New Year 1945

With every power for good to stay and guide me,
comforted and inspired beyond all fear,
I’ll live these days with you in thought beside me,
and pass, with you, into the coming year.

The old year still torments our hearts, unhastening:
the long days of our sorrow still endure.
Father, grant to the soul thou hast been chastening
that thou hast promised—the healing and the cure.

Should it be ours to drain the cup of grieving
even to the dregs of pain, at thy command,
we will not falter, thankfully receiving
all that is given by thy loving hand.

But, should it be thy will once more to release us
to life’s enjoyment and its good sunshine,
that we’ve learned from sorrow shall increase us
and all our life be dedicate as thine.

Today, let candles shed their radiant greeting:
lo, on our darkness are they not thy light,
leading us haply to our longed-for meeting?
Thou canst illumine e’en our darkest night.

When now the silence deepens for our harkening,
grant we may hear thy children’s voices raise
from all the unseen world around us darkening,
their universal paean, in thy praise.

While all the powers of Good aid and attend us,
boldly we’ll face the future, be it what may.
At even, and at morn, God will befriend us,
and oh, most surely each new year’s day!

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Dietrich Bonhoeffer: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

W.H. Auden*

W.H. Auden (1907—1973) is one of the major poetic voices of the twentieth century. Born in York, England, he studied English at Oxford University. His first collection, Poems, was privately printed in 1928. A much more influential collection of the same name was published with the help of T.S. Eliot in 1930. His many honours include the 1948 Pulitzer Prize, The Bollingen Prize (1953) and the National Book Award (1956). Joseph Brodsky once said that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".

Even through his years of professed atheism, Auden remained interested in Christianity. In 1940 he returned to the Anglican Church. Biographer Humphrey Carpenter said of Auden's transformation, "The last stage in his conversion had simply been a quiet and gradual decision to accept Christianity as a true premise. The experience had been undramatic, even rather dry."

Friday's Child

(In memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred at Flossenbürg, April 9, 1945)

He told us we were free to choose
But, children as we were, we thought—
"Paternal Love will only use
Force in the last resort

On those too bumptious to repent."
Accustomed to religious dread,
It never crossed our minds He meant
Exactly what He said.

Perhaps He frowns, perhaps He grieves,
But it seems idle to discuss
If anger or compassion leaves
The bigger bangs to us.

What reverence is rightly paid
To a Divinity so odd
He lets the Adam whom He made
Perform the Acts of God?

It might be jolly if we felt
Awe at this Universal Man
(When kings were local, people knelt);
Some try to, but who can?

The self-observed observing Mind
We meet when we observe at all
Is not alarming or unkind
But utterly banal.

Though instruments at Its command
Make wish and counterwish come true,
It clearly cannot understand
What It can clearly do.

Since the analogies are rot
Our senses based belief upon,
We have no means of learning what
Is really going on,

And must put up with having learned
All proofs or disproofs that we tender
Of His existence are returned
Unopened to the sender.

Now, did He really break the seal
And rise again? We dare not say;
But conscious unbelievers feel
Quite sure of Judgement Day.

Meanwhile, a silence on the cross,
As dead as we shall ever be,
Speaks of some total gain or loss,
And you and I are free

To guess from the insulted face
Just what Appearances He saves
By suffering in a public place
A death reserved for slaves.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about W.H. Auden: first post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Kelly Cherry

Kelly Cherry taught at the University of Wisconsin—Madison for more than 20 years. She is the author of several novels, story collections and nonfiction books. Her many poetry collections include: Natural Theology (1988), Death and Transfiguration (1997), and Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems (2007). She served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2010 to 2012. She lives on a small farm in Virginia with her husband, the fiction writer Burke Davis III.

She is one of the poets to be included in an upcoming anthology of contemporary Christian poetry, which I am editing for the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade Books), and which is slated to come out early in 2016. She recently told me she is working on a sequence of poems about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The following poem is included in Hazard and Prospect.

Virgin and Child

I’ll say that there are bits of gold
---------stuck in her hair, star-bits, brilliant
------------------blue slivers at the edge of the painting
that seem to dance in the light
---------from the fire.
------------------I’ll say there’s a fire even though there can’t be
and I’ll say the painting is as large as a room
---------and it can be. She moves in it
------------------as if it is a room,
the gold bits gleaming like candles
---------that consume nothing, not even themselves.
------------------The child crawls out of her arms
and onto the floor
---------and his plump wrists
------------------and knees
are like loaves of bread,
---------his mouth smells of milk,
------------------his palms are so tiny
there’s no room for even one nail hole.
---------She steps out of the frame,
------------------her hair sparkling
and the background to everything lapis lazuli and glittering,
---------and when she calls to him, clapping
------------------and laughing,
he hurtles toward her,
---------on all fours of course,
------------------and she catches him up
and swings him over her head,
---------and her hair with the stars pinned in it
------------------and the dancing blue background
slip backward into space
---------and it is the child’s face
------------------risen now, looking down,
into her face,
---------mother and son
------------------meeting each other’s eyes
as we look on.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

W.H. Auden

W.H. Auden (1907—1973) is considered by many to be one of the poetic masters of the twentieth century. He was influenced by T.S. Eliot stylistically, and by Gerard Manley Hopkins in his poetic techniques. He alienated many of those most interested in his poetry — by rejecting the left-wing political views that had established him in the late 1930s, and by leaving England for the United States in 1939.

Embracing Christianity also distanced him from many of his readers, but his public homosexuality didn’t make him an attractive figure to most Christians. He said he was drawn to reaffirm his Anglican faith in 1940, due to the influence of Charles Williams. Dietrich Bonhoffer was a major influence on the development of Auden’s theology towards the end of his life.

The following poem is the final of seven in a series entitled Horae Canonicae. The poet sees the Christian life as a life in community. Like Peter when he realized he had denied Jesus, we need to be awakened — by the natural world and by the church — to our self-imposed isolation, of which we need to repent.

Lauds

Among the leaves the small birds sing;
The crow of the cock commands awaking:
In solitude, for company.

Bright shines the sun on creatures mortal;
Men of their neighbours become sensible:
In solitude, for company.

The crow of the cock commands awaking;
Already the mass-bell goes dong-ding:
In solitude, for company.

Men of their neighbours become sensible;
God bless the Realm, God bless the People:
In solitude, for company.

Already the mass-bell goes dong-ding;
The dripping mill-wheel is again turning:
In solitude, for company.

God bless the Realm, God bless the People;
God bless this green world temporal:
In solitude, for company.

The dripping mill-wheel is again turning;
Among the leaves the small birds sing:
In solitude, for company.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about W.H. Auden: second post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a major German writer between the wars, a Lutheran pastor and theologian, whose books — such as The Cost of Discipleship — remain influential. In 1939 he refused to take the oath of loyalty to Adolph Hitler. In 1943, he was arrested for his participation in a plot to assassinate the Nazi leader.

In his cell in Flossenburg Prison, where he awaited execution, Bonhoeffer wrote the poems which appear in Voices in the Night (translated by Edwin Robertson). Sympathetic guards smuggled out his letters, and even offered to help him escape; he declined because he felt his family would be punished. He was executed by hanging on April 8, 1945 — just three weeks before Soviet forces captured Berlin.

Christians and Others

1. All go to God in their distress,
seek help and pray for bread and happiness,
deliverance from pain, guilt and death.
All do, Christians and others.

2. All go to God in His distress,
find him poor, reviled without shelter or bread,
watch him tormented by sin, weakness, and death.
Christians stand by God in His agony.

3. God goes to all in their distress,
satisfies body and soul with His bread,
dies, crucified for all, Christians and others
and both alike forgiving.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Dietrich Bonhoeffer: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca