Superfluous

I've been going on for years about the problem of language as a vehicle for abstract thought - in particular the snares of prose, which seems to simplify but can end up destroying. R.S.Thomas has been here already; this is my take just now.

Superfluous

Myriad words pinned to paper
in the never-ending search
for truth that hovers through the ages
on the tantalising edge of faith -
so we struggle with expressing
that bright fire to which we give a face,
humanise, imagine friendship
through the realm of time and space.

But the prayer when it happens
comes in darkness and in heat,
still eludes our Babel-clamour,
needs our silence to defeat
the world God’s children have constructed
from complexity and rules
till we rise again, replenished,
filled with fire that nothing cools.

© C.M.M. 07/19

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.

(Inspired by a painting by Daniel Bonnel, The Baptism of the Christ)

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