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."

 

 

Music

Henri Fantin-Latour

Music



It must be somewhere, the original harmony,

somewhere in great nature, hidden.

Is it in the furious infinite,

in distant stars’ orbits,

is it in the sun’s scorn,

in a tiny flower, in treegossip,

in heartmusic’s mothersong

or in tears?

It must be somewhere, immortality,

somewhere the original harmony must be found:

how else could it infuse

the human soul,


that music?

 

Juhan Liiv

Translated from the Estonian by H.L. Hix & Jüri Talvet 

 

Somewhere. The original music. The sound that all of us dream in. The song that all of us find ourselves within. Singing, dancing, moving, and we resist or surrender to it. Where is it? This original music, this rhythm that persists in spite of our anger, in spite of our lostness. "The furious infinite". Yes. How could it not be so?  An anger that resists Untruth and Less than Right and Not Quite Beautiful. "It Must Be Somewhere".

Somewhere.

"How else could it/infuse the the human soul"?

Indeed. How?




 

Canal Bank Walk

Carl Larsson

Canal Bank Walk



Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.
The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third
Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,
And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word
Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.
O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.



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

“Grow with nature…” I like that. People as plants. I can’t say I comprehend this poem, but certain parts of it seem so true. (I’ve decided it’s good not to know everything, to be in the process of learning, and have a sense of my ignorance. We want answers, we think everything should be knowable, graspable, and as it were –masterable (not a word, I know). But what a miserable world that would be.)  The lines that really get to me are these – “O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web of fabulous grass and eternal voices…feed the gaping need of my senses…for this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven from green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.” I don’t know what Kavanaugh meant to say, but I do know that Eden-call, that longing for a world unworn, where I am new as well, clothed in field and sky, and growing with nature. Yes, I know that.

Poetry

Esa Riippa

Poetry

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,

no they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from the others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth

had no way

with names,

my eyes were blind,

and something started in my soul,

fever or forgotten wings,

and I made my own way,

deciphering

that fire,

and I wrote the first faint line,

faint, without substance, pure

nonsense,

pure wisdom

of someone who knows nothing,

and suddenly I saw

the heavens

unfastened

and open,

planets,

palpitating plantations,

shadow perforated,

riddled

with arrows, fire and flowers,

the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

felt myself a pure part

of the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind

Pablo Neruda

It's about time we had a poem about poetry. Not the poem itself, but Neruda's sense of being "searched out for" or "summoned" by poetry. Neruda doesn't look for things to write about, they look for him. And he doesn't know what to say! "My mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind"... It reminds me of how God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery, and Moses protested that he couldn't speak well. Neruda talks about "the branches of night", and "violent fires" - isn't that like a burning bush? And Neruda wasn't prepared for the work either. So how did he become the master of words that we read here? "Fever or forgotten wings"? "Deciphering that fire"? All we know is that the heavens "unfastened" and opened, and he saw that small and limited as he was, he was a part of the infinite mystery, had a place in the great wonder, and his heart "broke loose". (I've been thinking about what it means to have one's heart break loose. Is it that it breaks free of "me"? That I leave self-centeredness for my true center?) It's clear that Neruda considers poetry a calling, and this comforts me. Poetry is hard to account for. Poets don't get much respect, or at least not the right kind of respect (that of being useful and necessary in everyday people's lives), they would need a good reason to do the work at all, if you ask me - a reason like Neruda's - "I was summoned",  and like Moses' - "God gave me these words."