My Passion

You are the fire of a thousand stars,
you are the rivers of the earth.
You are the tears of Samson’s blind eyes,
you are cathedral spires in rainy London.

Your heart bleeds dark with silent love;
it sprinkles slivered glass–no more seen
than raindrops, and no less felt–
memoirs of pain catching the sun’s rays,
and shimmering light through your eyes,
and into your long night.

You are the creaking of the boughs
In deep winter, crisp and laden.
You are the cry on Jeptha’s lips,
You are the blood on Zion’s streets.
You are my root and spire,
my dagger and my shield,
my thorn and my crown,.
You are joy and sorrow,
Mixing in this cosmic bowl,
giving laughter and silence to all.

Forgive me

Oh world, for all my faults I beg thy pardon,
for all my foolish talk and petty pride,
for all my ill-borne rage and misplaced sorrow;
that for a word mispoken I beat my breast,
and for a child forgotten, beat not an eye,
that at my inner fool I snarl,
while at tyrants laugh and shrug.
Oh world, pray, do not despise
to bear so mean a soul!
Forgive me, as thou I would forgive,
for all thy misplaced loves and barren dreams
and kind words spoken from an empty heart,
for these, as much as yours, are mine,
in all their putrid, crimson truth
that stains your hand and my heart,
that stains a cross of divine love,
and let us celebrate as fools,
as weeds, as dust, as men,
and trust in yet a greater man
who bears all sorrow and guilt, for having none.

Sonnet XV

O flame that burns so bright within,
why do you hesitate to tell
that wisdom which thou know so well,
as though our eyes alone possess
the strength to truth from error win!
Wilt thou, inner eye, confess
to be as blind, though inward dwell?
Among deaf ears and silent tongues,
and eyes, though seeing, sightless be,
art thou, O heart, from nonsense free;
alone that sense which truth percieves?
Stand thou but on higher rungs
of that same form, which lacking, grieves
that light, though there, he cannot see.

On my other blog, I included this poem as the introduction to a rather dry essay on epistemology. Yet this poem doesn't presume to answer such heavy questions, but merely to sound a note of questioning the trustworthiness of our internal ways of knowing. I wrote it without any particular point in mind; it is really no more than a musing in verse form, although I do make the rather pessimistic conclusion that the heart, as part of fallen humanity, cannot have perfect knowledge. But that, I expect, should be taken as obvious.