Shadows

Linda Bennett

Shadows

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon’s in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse and renewal.

And if, in the changing phases of man’s life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

 

D.H. Lawrence

 

 "...then I shall know that I am walking still/ with God we are close together now.."

There are so many distractions and stresses, there always have been - coming in from in so many directions. These days I look for the constants, the things that don't change. I find so much comfort there. Like the speaker in this poem, I go to sleep at night committing my existence into the hands of the God I trust with everything. The God who remains Himself no matter what dark cloud I find myself under, no matter what I don't know and can't control. The God who knows me fully and loves me entirely and who is able (and willing) to re-create me, transform me, lift me up beyond cloud or circumstance. The God with whom all good things are possible. "

"New blossoms of me." for instance, 

"strange flowers such as my life has not brought forth before."

 

 

To His Ever-Loving God

Unknown

To His Ever-Loving God

Can I not come to Thee, my God, for these

So very-many-meeting hindrances,

That slack my pace; but yet not make me stay?

Who slowly goes, rids (in the end) his way.

Cleere Thou my paths, or shorten Thou my miles,

Remove the barrs, or lift me o'er the stiles:

Since rough the way is, help me when I call,

And take me up; or els prevent the fall.

I kenn my home; and it affords some ease,

To see far off the smoaking Villages.

Fain would I rest; yet covet not to die,

For fear of future-biting penurie:

No, no (my God) Thou know'st my wishes be

To leave this life, not loving it, but Thee.

Robert Herrick

“I kenn my home; and it affords some ease, to see far off the smoaking Villages.” 
 

Such a satisfying poem – that image of a road full of frustrating obstacles, and the smoking chimney of home drawing us on in spite of our tiredness – the expressive choice of words, “so-very-many-meeting hindrances”, “future-biting penury” - the rhythmic back-and-forth of his pleas, do this or this, help me this way or else another - the sure-fit of the rhyme balanced against the uncertainty within his journey – all of this moves me, nevermind the last line, the line that stops the swish-swash of thoughts, yanks me from the earthosphere and back into the eternal. I know my home. My home is God, not the house but the Him-everywhere-and within.

All You Can See or Imagine

"Summer Night", AkagenoSaru

All You Can See or Imagine

Who has scooped up the ocean

in his two hands,

or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger,

who has put all the earth's dirt in one of his baskets,

weighed each mountain and hill?

Who could ever have told God what to do

or taught him his business?

What expert would he have gone to for advice,

what school would he attend to learn justice?

...

"So - who is like me?

Who holds a candle to me?" says The Holy.

Look at the night skies:

Who do you think made all this?

Who marches this army of stars out each night,

counts them off, calls each by name,

- so magnificent! so powerful! - 

and never overlooks a single one!

Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,

or whine, Israel, saying,

"God has lost track of me,

He doesn't care what happens to me'?

Don't you know anything? Haven't you been listening?

God doesn't come and go. God lasts.

He doesn't get tired out, doesn't pause to catch his breath.

And he knows everything, inside and out.

He energizes those who get tired,

gives fresh strength to dropouts.

For even young people tire and drop out,

young folk in their prime stumble and fall.

But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.

They spread their wings and soar like eagles,

They run and don't get tired,

they walk and don't lag behind.

Isaiah 40:12-14, 25-31

fr. The Message

Some prefer the more poetic King James version of the Bible (I think, when it comes down to it, I do too). But there is something interesting about the way Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible brings a new slant to the old familiar words. I like to read both, or several versions, just to compare the tone and feeling each conveys. This passage is a wonderful example of a “wake-me-up”. Something to take up after a sleepless night in which your worries have grown to enormous scope and paralyzing power, where the guilty corners of conscience are full of ugly and unshakable recollections, where the fear that there are nothing but odds against and nothing to even us, to balance, to restore or right us, and then, the morning – my gosh, have you ever felt that inexplicable loneliness of simply being alive? Well that’s when I take up the wake-up poetry, the break-up-this-narrowing-mental-corridor-going-nowhere poetry; and listen to me on this, there is no better place to find this but in the Bible. It’s like a hand upraised, a voice that says, “Peace. Be still.” And it stops. It all stops. The noise in my head, the tightness of my chest, the snowballing thoughts. It’s like being off-kilter, out of joint, askew, and having someone take me by the shoulders and set me right in place. My place. Where I fit, where I belong.

“Who is like me?”

Oh yeah. There it is. That’s right. My God, my God, my heavenly father – he knows. He has not forgotten. He has not been sleeping or looking the other way. He is working, he has never paused, hesitated, or faltered. He has not changed his mind about loving me. I can shake off this weight. I can stand up straight. I can go on.

The King James version gets the spirit of the last verse best -

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not grow weary;

and they shall walk, and not faint.”

To Nature

Unknown

To Nature

It may indeed be phantasy when I

Essay to draw from all created things

Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;

And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie

Lessons of love and earnest piety.

So let it be: and if the wide world rings

In mock of this belief, to me it brings

Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.

So will I build my altar in the fields,

And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,

And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields

Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,

Thee only God! and Thou shalt not despise

Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

from The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, ed. Phillis Levin


"So will I build my altar in the fields." This reminds me of Luci Shaw's poem May 20: Very Early Morning - in it the field itself speaks, and she wishes to emulate it - "make of our hearts a field to raise your praise."  Or even Dylan Thomas describing how he and his mother walked "through parables of sunlight, and the legends of the green chapels".  Nature as a place of worship, sacred, a place of praise, of mystery and stories, a chapel or a cathedral, is a theme I never tire of. (And that bit about the scent of wildflowers being like incense in an offering, I'm going to remember that the next time I walk past a foam flower or a wild violet.) I like Coleridge's "So let it be." Let people think what they want, let people laugh - his mind isn't changed. I'm with him on that, too.

Finite and Infinite

Gustave Courbet - "The Wave"

Finite and Infinite

The wind sounds only in opposing straits,

The sea, beside the shore; man's spirit rends

Its quiet only up against the ends

Of wants and oppositions, loves and hates,

Where, worked and worn by passionate debates,

And losing by the loss it apprehends,

The flesh rocks round and every breath it sends

Is ravelled to a sigh. All tortured states

Suppose a straitened place. Jehovah Lord,

Make room for rest, around me! out of sight

Now float me of the vexing land abhorred,

Till in deep calms of space my soul may right

Her nature, shoot large sail on lengthening cord,

And rush exultant on the Infinite.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, ed. Phillis Levin

“All tortured states/ suppose a straitened place.”  What a beautifully accurate image that is! The poem is so perfectly crafted, showing how the wind and water are only worked up when they have boundaries to stop them, when they are held in, pent up, limited. The way Elizabeth Browning uses the metaphor of crashing waves for her state of mind moves me. I can relate. I've lived in a "straitened place" for several years now. A place where I am continually cast up against my own limitations. There has been little room for rest or peace. I too, have been crying out to God for relief, for room, for "deep calms of space {where} my soul may right her nature". "Vexing land abhorred" ?!! She's got that right. How good it is to know others have been in this place, and felt this way, and continued on calling out to God and putting up sails.