He blesses every love which weeps and grieves
And now he blesses hers who stood and wept
And would not be consoled, or leave her love’s
Last touching place, but watched as low light crept
Up from the east. A sound behind her stirs
A scatter of bright birdsong through the air.
She turns, but cannot focus through her tears,
Or recognise the Gardener standing there.
She hardly hears his gentle question ‘Why,
Why are you weeping?’, or sees the play of light
That brightens as she chokes out her reply
‘They took my love away, my day is night’
And then she hears her name, she hears Love say
The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.
We see so little, stayed on surfaces, We calculate the outsides of all things, Preoccupied with our own purposes We miss the shimmer of the angels’ wings, They coruscate around us in their joy A swirl of wheels and eyes and wings unfurled, They guard the good we purpose to destroy, A hidden blaze of glory in God’s world. But on this day a young girl stopped to see With open eyes and heart. She heard the voice; The promise of His glory yet to be, As time stood still for her to make a choice; Gabriel knelt and not a feather stirred, The Word himself was waiting on her word.
Some of us celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration on August 6th, which is on Sunday this year. Here is an excerpt from “Transfiguration” by Malcolm Guite:
“The Love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face
And to that light the light in us leaped up…”
Do skip over to Guite’s page so you can hear him read his latest poem himself.
I first read this poem on Malcolm Guite’s blog – he included it in his anthology Waiting on the Word: A Poem a Day for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, into which I dipped recently. It makes me think of my late husband, because we enjoyed, as most married couples must, that sweet and simple privilege of having someone at hand to whom we could say things like, “Honey, come out here and look at the moon!”
The Moon – by Arthur Dove
Tonight I was driving home from a meeting — the skies were clear midnight blue for the first time in ten days, just in time for me to get a view as long as my journey, of the “silvercoin full” moon hanging there. I wished that I could turn on my jets and angle straight up to talk to the Man who was smiling at me. I remembered the poem, and without thinking whether it made any sense, I said, “Mr. Glad, will you look at this moon!”
You might want to read on the poet’s own website, Grevel Lindop, from which he also links to Malcolm Guite’s presentation. Both of them feature evocative images to accompany the poem.
THE MOONS
Too many moons to fill an almanac:
the half, the quarters, and the slices between
black new and silvercoin full –
pearl tossed and netted in webs of cloud,
thread of light with the dull disc in its loop,
gold shaving afloat on the horizon of harvest –
How many times did you call me from the house,
or from my desk to the window, just to see?
Should I string them all on a necklace for you?
Impossible, though you gave them all to me.
Still some of their light reflects from memory.
Here it is, distant gleam on the page of a book.
Gladsome Lights 