Aug 2019
"ELECTED SILENCE, SING TO ME..."
"Skin"
as they used to call him
is( like me )
up a tree
the very topmost
tip of it.
Wondering at this
great height
"What must it be
to be
someone
else?"
I too a boy
at one with the sky
sharing
a branch with a bird
who accepts me
as just
another( if odd )bird
of a different feather.
I wonder if the bird wonders
what it must me to be - me.
Esse quam videri
( to be rather than
to seem to be)
words carved into the living
tree
the wounded bark.
Clouds too
are my friends.
Feel as if I could
step on one
have the wind
roll me about.
Fields...
a green patchwork quilt
River...
a silver thread.
House---
a mere toy.
Time spreads out
endlessly.
It is always and
only forever.
The created and uncreated
map of Now.
"Skin" or
Gerard Manley Hopkins
as I will get
to know him
both up
our respective tree.
He in 1853.
Me in 1963.
Drinking in the world
with our eyes
and one big
gulp of the mind.
"Skin"
as they used to call him
is( like me )
up a tree
the very topmost
tip of it.
Wondering at this
great height
"What must it be
to be
someone
else?"
I too a boy
at one with the sky
sharing
a branch with a bird
who accepts me
as just
another( if odd )bird
of a different feather.
I wonder if the bird wonders
what it must me to be - me.
Esse quam videri
( to be rather than
to seem to be)
words carved into the living
tree
the wounded bark.
Clouds too
are my friends.
Feel as if I could
step on one
have the wind
roll me about.
Fields...
a green patchwork quilt
River...
a silver thread.
House---
a mere toy.
Time spreads out
endlessly.
It is always and
only forever.
The created and uncreated
map of Now.
"Skin" or
Gerard Manley Hopkins
as I will get
to know him
both up
our respective tree.
He in 1853.
Me in 1963.
Drinking in the world
with our eyes
and one big
gulp of the mind.
REALITY'S UNRAVELLER
Charles Luxmoore on Gerard Manley Hopkins...
"...a fearless climber of trees, and would go up very high in the lofty elm tree, standing in our garden...to the the alarm of un-lookers like myself."
I on the other hand climbed trees to escape the world of my young sister's death...here at this great height I could be both in and out of the world...longing to be someone else...somewhere else....anywhere else...anyone else...even a bird if that could be...the map of the world spread below me...high above this bitter grief. I would "vanish" into bay windows and sit for hours whilst aunts and uncle stood a few feet from me and wondered where "the boy has gone" and call my name that didn't seem to be me anymore. I remember sitting between two silver milk churns down in Cork and everyone unseeing of me as if my grief had made me invisible. I was "Of reality the rarest-veined unraveller..."
***
The Habit of Perfection
ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: 5
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.
Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light: 10
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust 15
So fresh that come in fasts divine!
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side! 20
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.
And, Poverty, be thou the bride 25
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.
Charles Luxmoore on Gerard Manley Hopkins...
"...a fearless climber of trees, and would go up very high in the lofty elm tree, standing in our garden...to the the alarm of un-lookers like myself."
I on the other hand climbed trees to escape the world of my young sister's death...here at this great height I could be both in and out of the world...longing to be someone else...somewhere else....anywhere else...anyone else...even a bird if that could be...the map of the world spread below me...high above this bitter grief. I would "vanish" into bay windows and sit for hours whilst aunts and uncle stood a few feet from me and wondered where "the boy has gone" and call my name that didn't seem to be me anymore. I remember sitting between two silver milk churns down in Cork and everyone unseeing of me as if my grief had made me invisible. I was "Of reality the rarest-veined unraveller..."
***
The Habit of Perfection
ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: 5
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.
Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light: 10
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust 15
So fresh that come in fasts divine!
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side! 20
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.
And, Poverty, be thou the bride 25
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.
