Kindness must watch for me

I find myself unable to edit the blogs I write, so I send them back to the “draft” stage. It is as though I can only write in the immediate moment — the true present. It is also hard to find my true voice. My desperation comes out of anger, not depression.

This poem by James Agee has rung true for me for many years, but now during this pandemic, this time of moral unrest and economic injustice, I believe it is particularly meaningful. Here it is both the poetic form and the song composed by Morten Lauridsen.

Sure on this shining night

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.

Agee’s poem was written during the Great Depression. He was moved by the sharecroppers working and living in abject poverty. He traveled with Walker Evans, the photographer who took photos depicting the ravages of the Great Depression on the poor. Agee attended Phillips Exeter and Harvard — and was very well aware of the gap between his life and those less advantaged. “Kindness must watch for me this side the ground” is a kind of prayer for all to survive this side of the ground.

“Weep”and “wandering alone” speak to “the shadows”– the underbelly of the shining night. Critics often speak of Agee’s agnosticism. He had a life-long friendship with the Episcopal Priest Father Flye, as his teacher and mentor. Agee loved the study of literature and was an avid reader. He suffered from manic-depression and railed against life through uncontrolled drinking and chain-smoking. He wrote about it in a book called “Letters of James Agee to Father Flye.” Father Flye often officiated at St. Luke in the Fields Church in the Village — a church I attended for 18 years. Agee would die of a heart attack at 58 years old. .

Between the pandemic, white supremacy and police brutality I find myself growing closer to “agnosticism” every day. We are this side the ground, but “kindness must watch for all of us.” “All is not healed, all is not health.”