my cells worship the dying star lying on warm earth with eyes shut – primeval float before a creator in the blinding temple of white my mind echoes the receding ages into the spiraled universe all whom I love will die atoms of memory joy and pain meeting the still earth under the fated sun. bodies at rest their spirits find birth against darkness of night (1960s) do not touch this flame unless you would be burned, or breathe your quiet atmosphere in circles round this light which will consume and bind your strength with heat so bright you will be turned to new substance your hurt is not intended here except as nature draws each loss to transformed goodness but this diminishment for you, as you, is death still, if you will be fire and join the uncaused Cause which shines beyond infinity a blaze of primal energy and radiates all laws, I only need your willingness (1960s) Oh, Hidden Jesus, [i] ever more endearing by your swaddling veils which reassure us with a barrier to sight that God prevails It is the nature of this world to express through hiding, [ii] where plainest natural fact in all transparency still speaks a secret from creation’s mystery Oh, fully Hidden Jesus, what shall we look behind? The irony of searching thus is not to seek, by reaching out, for truly we are happier, to find you – finding us. (2010s) [i] Walsh, Thomas William. Our Lady of Fatima. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1948. – See multiple references to the Portuguese name for the Blessed Sacrament, “The Hidden Jesus,” for example, pp. 26-7. [ii] Faber, Frederick William, DD. The Blessed Sacrament. Philadelphia, PA: The Peter Reilly Co. 1958, “The Blessed Sacrament a Picture of God: Book III, Section III – God Sought and Found,” pp. 246 ff. “Seen by the moonlight of reason, as well as by the sunshine of revelation, all creation lies before us as a vast region, every point of which is a hiding-place of Him who made it. With Him, to reveal Himself is to conceal Himself. It seems a sort of necessity of His incomprehensible perfections.” If I had had heart’s wish, I think I would have bread and laughter an arm of love to rest my head and children’s love to follow after But for the fragments of the sky the shards and crystal pieces falling through which I see at Heaven’s breaking, though forced to pay a cruel tax, I bear heart’s aching (1970s ?) Your will’s my bitter prison, Lord This place distasteful These people strange work slavery my plans refused desires denied Yet others think I’m free, all choices mine. And I am free: free to be yours or mine, and therefore your prisoner. I can hardly be me I so disagree with Thee (1960s) If man of himself could in a perfect manner know all things visible and invisible, it would indeed be foolish to believe what he does not see. But our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly. [i] “Sermon on the Apostles' Creed” Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) [i] “Thomas Aquinas”. en.wikiquote.org. {https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas} (accessed December 1, 2021). His foundation upon the holy mountains the Lord loves, the gates of Zion, more than any dwelling of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, O city of God! I tell of Egypt and Babylon among those that know the Lord; Of Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia: “This man was born there.” And of Zion they shall say: “One and all were born in her; And he who has established her is the Most High Lord.” They shall note, when the peoples are enrolled: “This man was born there.” And all shall sing, in their festive dance: “My home is within you.” [i] [i] Psalm 87: 1-7 – “Daily Readings”. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops. {https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042721.cfm} (accessed January 19. 2022). |
Poems by Janet
|
von Gumppenberg |
|
|