April is National Poetry Month, so Raymond Pert focused this week's sibling assignment on poetry. His assignment was to post an entry focused on one poem that is currently important to us. IEG's poem about afternoon naps is here, and RP's poem will be here.
I have a book called Pilgrim Souls that I purchased about 10 or more years ago. It is a collection of spiritual autobiographies. One of these autobiographies is about Denise Levertov, a poet. The collection that is in this book show some of Levertov's poetry that emphasizes on the poet as poet, her vocation and destiny, her discovery and re-creation of the order behind the seeming chaos of life. They also trace what Levertov called her slow movement from agnosticism to Christian faith.
The poem that I can relate to most today is a struggle I deal with each and every day.
Primary Wonder
Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
My mind is filled with so many problems, ideas, things to do, projects and other distractions, that it can divert my thoughts to everything but spending that quiet time with my Lord and Saviour. But then God's grace helps me find that time and that place to quiet my mind, and focus on His presence, and His mystery.
2 comments:
Wow, I struggle with that, too! As another poet said, "The world is too much with us, late and soon..." Thank you for the reminder.
Very timely poem. Our assignments take on a bit of the same theme.
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