will it feel like this forever, i wonder? will we forever be crying out to Him with no ears to hear, absolving our losses, taking accounts of entreaties, spinning, whirling, wrecking, head over heel as the world unravels? will we forever be stalled, unmoving as we cripple--the crooked and knobbed joints of sixth-day's beauty?
yet where will we go? and what shall we say? to whom should we speak? our words will never save us.
but who made this cruel world and cruel man and called it good? and how do we stop the hurling plummet into ever-deepening darkness of space?
will i forever be here, sleeping, alone? crying out echoes to the most high, the most powerful? will i forever be moving, unmoving? but the earth has me in its hold, its hand sliding up to my neck, securing me in its grip.
"Mornings, when light spreads over the pastures like wings, and fans a secret color into everything, and beats the trees senseless with beauty, so that you can't tell whether the beauty is in the trees--dazzling in cells like yellow sparks or green flashing waters--or on them--a transfiguring silver air charged with the wings' invisible motion; mornings, you won't be able to walk for the power of it: earth's too round. And by long and waking day--Sext, None, Vespers--when the grasses, living or dead, drowse while the sun reels, or lash in any wind, when the sparrows hush and tides slack at the ebb, or flood up the beaches and cliffsides tangled with weed, and hay waits, and elsewhere people buy shoes--then you kneel, clattering with thoughts, ill, or some days erupting, some days holding the altar rail, gripping the brass-bolt altar rail, so you won't fly."*
but yet,
"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers nor stand too quiet when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."**
and then what do we do with mornings? we cannot know by the dim light of the moon--morning's promise. yet, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die. who gets his due of God's promise? we cannot know.
does it matter? because I - CANNOT - MOVE. and this world has my heart already. this cruel, dumb, merciless world.
cry, you robbed child, robbed with love and devotion to the valence of innocence of this wrecked world. it is pulling itself apart, and us with it. mourn, for your love cannot be innocent, your devotion pure, nor beauty undestroyed. cry, for you have lost your self, your sense, your soul to the fierce beauty of it all in the cruelly sharp and painful hands of the One who fashioned the depth and breadth of it all in mercy.
He, He whom I try to take leave of, but whom will never let loose His hold of me.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand hold me fast.
yet where will we go? and what shall we say? to whom should we speak? our words will never save us.
but who made this cruel world and cruel man and called it good? and how do we stop the hurling plummet into ever-deepening darkness of space?
will i forever be here, sleeping, alone? crying out echoes to the most high, the most powerful? will i forever be moving, unmoving? but the earth has me in its hold, its hand sliding up to my neck, securing me in its grip.
"Mornings, when light spreads over the pastures like wings, and fans a secret color into everything, and beats the trees senseless with beauty, so that you can't tell whether the beauty is in the trees--dazzling in cells like yellow sparks or green flashing waters--or on them--a transfiguring silver air charged with the wings' invisible motion; mornings, you won't be able to walk for the power of it: earth's too round. And by long and waking day--Sext, None, Vespers--when the grasses, living or dead, drowse while the sun reels, or lash in any wind, when the sparrows hush and tides slack at the ebb, or flood up the beaches and cliffsides tangled with weed, and hay waits, and elsewhere people buy shoes--then you kneel, clattering with thoughts, ill, or some days erupting, some days holding the altar rail, gripping the brass-bolt altar rail, so you won't fly."*
but yet,
"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers nor stand too quiet when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."**
and then what do we do with mornings? we cannot know by the dim light of the moon--morning's promise. yet, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die. who gets his due of God's promise? we cannot know.
does it matter? because I - CANNOT - MOVE. and this world has my heart already. this cruel, dumb, merciless world.
cry, you robbed child, robbed with love and devotion to the valence of innocence of this wrecked world. it is pulling itself apart, and us with it. mourn, for your love cannot be innocent, your devotion pure, nor beauty undestroyed. cry, for you have lost your self, your sense, your soul to the fierce beauty of it all in the cruelly sharp and painful hands of the One who fashioned the depth and breadth of it all in mercy.
He, He whom I try to take leave of, but whom will never let loose His hold of me.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand hold me fast.
posted by letter to the editor | 7:35 PM
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