Tuesday, July 16, 2019

One retreat, two poems

I was on retreat on the Island of Lewis last month with three friends, directed by a fourth friend who lives on the island in a community of two Anglican religious. We four stayed in a self-catering house in Back; Sister Clare came over from Gress - though one day we walked there for the Evening Office. It was memorable in several ways, which I don't intend to go into here, and produced two poems.


OUTBURST

O, be silent when the God speaks - 
do not blurt your blunted vision
to distort or seek to bend
the flow of love and pain.
Listen. Open. Feel the keenness
of the shaft that wounds the soul;
feel the way you change, but quiet
like a child that hears a call.

Only then, within that silence
can the music truly sing,
make the wordless song of heaven
sweep you up until your tongue
is freed from all the weight of language
 - free to wonder, free to cease -
and your soul can shed what has been,  
free to wander heaven’s peace.


© C.M.M. Back, Lewis, June 2019


JORDAN

The burden of that sudden light
Overwhelms my shrinking self
As I step into the surge
Of life and what will come.
The holy dove, its wings outspread,
Hovers close. No comfort there.
I see the darkness pressing back
Around the edges of my world
Through eyes half closed,
Through lash and hair
That covers my defenceless face.
The water swirls. I feel the tug
Of forces far beyond my reach.
I will obey. God, I accept
- will lift this burden that is Light.

© C.M.M.
Back, Lewis, June 19.

This second poem was inspired by a painting by Daniel Bonnell of the Baptism of the Christ, which you can see here: http://www.bonnellart.com/2012-2015.html