As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the few poets who speaks to me is the sad Catholic Francis Thompson. Thompson wrote almost all of his poetry during the four years of his life when he wasn't consumed with his addictions. My dad introduced him to me by way of his most well-known poem, The Hound of Heaven.
I found a book of his poems in a used bookstore years ago. A few months before Silvi was born, I stumbled across the poem Little Jesus. It touched me with its sweetness.
I'm convinced that poetry can only be fully appreciated when it is read out loud. I've often tried to read poetry at home or online, with faltering success. I have a book of Francis Thompson's poetry that sometimes speaks to me. Or Rainer Maria Rilke. But it's not the same as hearing the poem read by a born orator.
I'm also convinced that poetry can only be fully appreciated by those who have endured the crucible of suffering. That seems to explain the reason why I've paused in the poetry section of various bookstores this week, looking for relief, or the right words, or... what? I don't know. But the poems I happened upon have seemed more, well, alive to me these past two weeks.
One of those poems captured something of the spiritual battle that is going on inside of me. It's called Thou Art Indeed Just by the Victorian poet and Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins. It's a plea to God, written during a time of deep spiritual depression.
Listen to the poem if you can. Or read it below.
Thou Art Indeed Just
THOU art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain, Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
The Seers are gone. The Guardians have vanished. The Shepherds have been devoured by the wolves, and their blood soaks the ground. Those who seek to replace them offer no refuge, no place to rest a weary head. They offer only solutions to problems.
I am not a problem. I am a Mystery. Do not try to give me a Name. Only One knows my true Name.
I wander in search of sanctuary. A refuge. You lay stone upon stone yet cannot build a home.
What furious hunger compels us to try to find a synthesis between two irreducible opposites! We are consumed with winning both this earthly life and the Kingdom of the horizon. Flesh and bone and spirit in bloody battle.
Cain fighting with Abel.
This earthly life of pigs and dust and weeping mothers cannot be reconciled with the world of angels and devils and gods born of virgins.
Rest. One is coming who will shatter the divide between earth and heaven. And Cain will feast with Abel.
(Click on the poem to read it.)
