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