TO GISLEBERTUS
[This was a kind of blog before blogs were invented.]
Well, Gislebertus, I suppose you won’t mind
Being addressed by me nine hundred years late;
Any more than Burns’s mouse or louse
Would have objected. Or than the cypresses or oaks 14/10/03
Minded the cries of the prophet. All poems
Send oblique messages, like arrows
Shot at a venture. You will allow the conceit. 15/10/03
Conceit - as you carved one pillar,
As you dreamt, or drank, or idled, did you
Loft up, turn, demolish, refurbish
Mental carvings until for the next pillar
You envisioned its ideal conceit? 18/10/03
Conceit - I could elaborate on the way a poem
Is a carving, the bedrock of language being
Chiselled by pen and mind, to conform
To that image subsisting in the poet’s mind;
How only at the last stroke will you perceive
The poem in the round, how toil and sweat
Conformed it to reality; yet how the product
Is not life but something that the viewer
May enliven with the spark of his thought.
But conceit has another meaning - and were I
Really with you would I have the neck
To ask if putting ‘Gislebertus hoc fecit’
In the midst of the throne wasn’t conceit? 01/11/03
If I try to discount this by attempting to argue
The value of art superseding other values
Golgotha crosses me; did its shadow blacken
Your mind? Did you carve the darkness into
Your sculptures, those which heightened the emotion,
Conscious of an interplay of shadow and light
In your mind? In your soul? How did those wizened
Bodies of souls weigh in your balances? 08/11/03
Sorry for not writing for a while but
I had a letter and poem to write to
My wife - you know what they’re like.
Actually, that is part of the point of writing
To you - you know what women are like,
Portraying your Eve as if you were aware
That female beauty was the product of sculpture
More adept than yours, your statue a mere
Essay at that form of the good
Which God had made. For all we makers
Make in that light; but His Eve as yours
Rode for a fall; the shadow defines
Our images; while only fall’s red
Or gold provides the covering beauty. 25/11/03
Well, man, what d’you think about your name
Being in the paper? Not that only
But a headline, and the chap reckoning
You’re better than Michelangelo - that, friend,
Makes you top man in the world of sculpture!
He spoke about riffs in stone, and this
Is a riff to you, extemporising, beating
Irregular pulses, to celebrate your art. 9/12/03
Does your heart miss a few pulses at
The word: the world? After a hesitation
I put it in. But, for you, was the world 16/12/03
A subject of the imperious church? For me
The church - your church - has become the world’s
Chaplain, or jester. At least in theory. 20/12/03
I was going to wish you a happy
New Year when the fixity of your position
Bit me: was the Man we have inscribed
So well and badly, in poems of stone
Or words, the object of your faith? And if so
Will I speak with you in the golden streets? 06/01/04
When I gather together all of you
In a small huddle - Jamie Graham,
Strafford, Njal and his wife, Joan Waste …
And tell you I wrote poems about you
Will you tell me I should have exercised
My time on a better Man; or simply
That all these poetries are worthless? 17/01/04
Now, Gis, I’m back in London where I found
Another book with references to you
And your dynamic work - as if a vivid spark
Electrified it, frisson of life charged it. 20/01/04
Home again I felt today that I wanted to
Write an epic - did you sometimes sit
Hammer hand and chisel hand twitching with
Longing to carve a colossus? Did you find
The muscles tense to the mind’s tension
As your heart imagined the vast opus
Bound to emerge? I think you’ll understand
My mind just now. And understand too
How games, or books, or less massive works
Dissipated the impulse leaving the brain
Depressed with its self-inflicted weakness. 21/01/04
But if you had been a writer it is
A dramatist you would have been. Character
Not archetype is your marque. Eve
Or Judas you make suffer like real people. 23/01/04
My problem today is that I do not have
A brother. Why this should today become a problem,
After more than fifty years without one, I
Do not know. Probably a real brother would
Tell me to stop talking nonsense. But I’d like
Someone else who knows what it is to be
The son of my father, the brother of my sisters;
And someone with at least some clue of how
My mind works. Perhaps I write to you
Imagining you have some brotherly
Overlap with my mind - Christian and maker. 24/01/04
Let me note it down - the Lord as a Man
Refused glory, but it accrued to Him
Because of innate worth; but, finished
The course of His earthly journey, He asked
To be glorified - that the glory might magnify
His Father: all was for the Father’s honour. 25/01/04
Could you read? Were you a monk yourself?
Or did you hear the monks’ readers
Over their meals? And as you heard the reader
Did something seize your sculptor’s spirit
Telling it - that is an image? As I
Was last Lord’s day jolted by a scripture
Knowing that it should be to me a poem? 31/01/04
The Last Adam, Christ as risen,
Gives life according to the finality
Of His position; as feet-washer brings us
Into liberty. Yet it is the Son who sets
Us free, while the Shepherd is come to give
Life abundantly, and to lead to pasture.
The Holy Spirit is the source also
Of life and liberty - born anew,
And suited by Him for God’s presence.
While the Father raises the dead and quickens
But also gives the wherewithal for freedom -
Best robe, gold ring, the sandals and the house. 01/02/04
It must be arguable that these effusions
Are nothing more than Parnassian - the patois
Of poetry without that passionate intensity
Which makes poetry real, and makes real poetry.
If challenged about the range of my verse
How much would I claim had the quality
Which makes a Munro out of a mere Top?
Or makes a sculpture out of a mere carving?
Added to this is the anti-poetical urge
To make the symbolic - especially in Scripture -
Potable by diluting it by translation;
Or perhaps transliteration; or perhaps interpretation. 06/02/04
That there should be a perfect Man
Depended upon Him being personally divine;
That there should be an effectual sacrifice
Depended upon there being a perfect Man;
That He should be raised and ascend
Depended upon Him being an effectual sacrifice;
That He should take upon Himself official glories
Depended upon Him being raised and ascended. 11/02/04
Today I finished reading ‘Trawler’
With its various grim fascinations:
Creatures of the deeps brutally fit
For pressure where all that maims us
Enhances their life; men at strife
With the sea’s abundance, sleeplessness,
Hulking metal and cord; sea-lumps -
Accretions of wave power, casually
Tossing man’s weighty enterprises. 21/02/04
Are you a fantasy? Are you my imaginary
Brother? (For as I said, I had a sad day
For lack of a brother. Why after nearly fifty
Brotherless years did I suddenly
Feel that lack? And if my doctrine asserts
Christ cannot take that place what if
My heart defies my doctrine?) I cling
Often to Jotham’s parable and its conversational
Trees: yet wait still for resolutions. 28/02/04
The book ‘Civilization’ I received
From father when I was about eighteen -
Then felt I like some scientist through whose screen
Inter-galactic contact was achieved;
Here half-known painters works were interleaved
With sculptors carvings I had never seen;
I wondered at the objects which had been
Embodied through what genius conceived.
The Italians were my favourites, with their tide
That welled through Dante, Michelangelo,
Till cresting in Bernini. Gericault
And Delacroix were fresh to me then too:
The Germans gave me Durer. In that show
Vividly, Gislebertus, I found you. 23/02/04
The game ‘Civilization’ I acquired
Along with a computer which I bought;
It starts with settlers, and their landscape fraught
With possibilities - how men enquired,
Or nations flourished, languished or expired
You play, deciding battles to be fought,
Wonders to build, or knowledge to be sought -
Developments of which I’m never tired.
This is a world which does not have a cross
And its last judgement is a graph. I live
Crossed in a crossed world. That God should forgive
Required the cross’s stern reality,
Making man’s highest thoughts worthless as dross.
God’s Spirit has no truck with fantasy. 25/02/04
Civilization came with stick and sword
To arrest my Master, and it led Him bound
To judgement where no justice could be found.
And as His four evangelists record
Civilization cried with one accord,
‘Crucify Him!’ And still it will astound
My soul that Pilate wilted at that sound:
Civilization crucified my Lord. 29/02/04
‘The world is crucified to me’, Paul wrote
And all his living turned upon that hub.
He adds, ‘I to the world’ - ay, there’s the rub.
It’s I must have an end. Yet it is through
The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I quote
But may grace operate to make all true! 27/02/04
When I think of the Father there are titles,
The Father of lights, the Father of spirits,
Which enlighten me; He is magnified as the God
And Father of our Lord Jesus Christ;
And my heart rejoices in the heart that gave
The kisses and robe, the sandals and ring,
And the sharing with me of fatted calf and home;
But the finest thing I know of the Father
Is that He is the kind of Person to whom
The Son is the absorbing centre of delight. 10/03/04
I meant to tell you about last Lord’s day
And now it’s nearly next Lord’s day -
What remains? Has anything become
Engrained? For a little at least a Vine
Was before me: a Man in perfect growth
Burgeoning to God, even in blood and flesh,
Till the time of pressure brought that wine
Which cheered God and man. And I saw
The rod of an almond-tree, Christ in a life
Out of death - bearing to God fruit
In resurrection. Later I was reminded of
The tree of life flourishing always
In its own environment - Christ in glory.
Then an impression of the sheer joy
Of being with the Father, which eclipsed
Both the penalty and suffering, and the pleasure
Of the victory or its prize, to the mind of Jesus. 20/03/04
When I was writing about trees I felt
That a poem-tree (or forest) would set out
The relationship of verse to verse, the phloem
Flowing from root to trunk to branch.
For this address to you a similar web
Begins to seem appropriate -
Linking subject to subject, and intent to thought. 03/04
A sculptor has the advantage of a length of time
In which a work is formed; for writing poetry
The scale varies - since a haiku or rune,
Briefly completed, is as valid a poem
As epic or drama. Yet it is hard to claim
That this haiku is greater, or even better
Than that epic. And what construes the validity?
A ring of truth. 25/03/04
But a new day’s perspective
Makes me ask - what kind of ring? Firstly,
I had in mind the clean peal of a bell;
But the ring could be an aura, haloing
The poem; or an arena in which wrestle
Antipathies - artifices and tropes - from which
A truth will triumph. Some of the pain
Suggests a wring of truth. My dictionary
Of clichés tells me the origin of the phrase
Is the sounding of good coin, distinguished
From the base. That has a ring of truth to it. 26/03/04
So I looked you up briefly on the Internet
And came up with twenty-eight hits, including
‘Weighing the Souls of the Damned’. Going to it
The usual message – the page cannot be found. 02/04/04
Well, Gislebertus, I searched for you again
Briefly, on Anne’s computer. There they were
The kings, Eve, the weighed souls -
All of the sculptures that I knew before!
At least it reminded me of the delicacy
Of a dream made stone: the waves peaceful
Travelling over the counterpane, the crowned sleepers
And the angel’s finger - some things in art
Are so well done they make you want to laugh! 06/04/04
In fifty years (nearly) what has been learned
And what achieved? Jesus did not trust Himself to
Man ‘… for himself knew what was in man’:
No heroes is the saddest lesson. 08/04/04
That is the negative - but that One Man
Is my Rock in whom I will trust, my Fortress
Guarding me, my Shield protecting in the battle,
The horn of my salvation, my high tower
Protecting me - and giving me a vista
Over His demesne; that is the positive lesson. 10/04/04
I finished reading Eyrbyggja Saga
This week - of Sagas I have read
I find it least attractive. Perhaps because
Snorri the priest, its most dominant person,
Is less attractive - or perhaps since he does not
Dominate enough. Am I, I ask myself,
Again seeking pearls in a dunghill? 15/04/04
‘What a heart is the heart of Christ!’ - the rhythms
Of the statement fix it to me. But what
Should I do? The mind always turns to
Doing - how would the rhymes fit, should
I attempt the difficult rhyming
With ‘Christ’? Should I rest rather
In the glory of the suggestion? Or is that
The loss of an opportunity to celebrate Him? 17/04/04
Did you ever wonder what it would be like
To not be a maker? Did you ever have a twinge
Of envy for the people who were not subject
To the demands of making? Who are not as they read,
Or observe, or pray, liable to have some trope,
Or vision, demand their attention? Who do not
Have the guilt of carvings half-carved,
Verses half-written, or not written, nagging them.
It is easy to imagine a composer halted
By a confluence or continuum of sound; a painter
Jolted by a landscape or inscape, a dramatist
Arrested by a metaphor or character. Harder
To imagine a person to whom life and mind
Bring no fiats, no struggles to achieve, or consciences.
Yet sooner will the ruined Siamese divest himself
Of the sacred charge of his white elephant;
Sooner will an addict abandon the drug
In his hand; sooner the waters of Jordan heap
Than an artist forsake the bridle of his making. 17/04/04
I took an unstarted notebook to London
But wrote nothing in it; for there is a distinctness
To a notebook which makes the first writing in it
Like a loss of virginity. Easier to write on
Scraps or pads. I was reminded of buying
The brown notebook, first of a line,
And being wary of it until it became
Inn for various thought, recorded cryptically
And now journeyed on. My verse settled 23/04/04
Into various books to be filtered by time
Till only thought properly dissolved remained:
In theory at least. I presume that you had note-stones 24/04/04
Roughly working out light and shade,
Forms and finishes. Did you use bozzetti
Of clay? Small chisellings to discover
How the light would darken? Polishes
To catch the eye, the sun, or the emotions? 25/04/04
There is a special satisfaction in a task
Done well; not only a sculpture or verse
But a fish filleted or shoe repaired.
And the God who could call His creation good,
And that according to His own quality standards,
Has now the pleasure of the fulfilment of His purposes,
The contentment of seeing His meticulously finished work. 27/04/04
There it is in the newspaper, the story (See Leningrad Queue
With suited quotations and explanations. Here and appendix)
It is, retold. Clarifications have been added
And a temporary obfuscation. What has been attempted
And what achieved? To read the newspaper version
Had pathos to me; the attempt was to evoke
New feelings and provoke thoughts fresh
In the reader. But more to produce an artefact,
Transforming the event into that otherness, a poem. 01/05/04
So here I am in Chichester, a fine city,
With the kind of cathedral which you would feel
At home with. I like a small city -
Perhaps it is Zoar to me - in which you
Can walk the walls in an hour. Chichester
Is riddled with ecclesiastical references - priory,
Franklin or friary, it seems to have all
You could name. But I like the honesty of a place
Quartered by North, South, East
And West Streets, but with mysterious pallants
Added to that. In Priory Park
The low sun lightens the whites
Of the cricket game, (which, you’ll have noticed
Is a haiku). I looked into the cathedral
And wondered about the question whether
Prayer there had been valid. Considering
Two men in the temple, publican and Pharisee,
There would have been a mixture -
The Lord as the Great High Priest adjudging
Their sincerity, and truth, and faith. We cannot
Make claim to engage in that evaluation. 12/05/04
Hour by hour, day by day,
Week by week, year by year
You carved, translating thought into stone,
As painters translated thought to paint 20/05/04
Now someone in a moment may seize an image
By photography - and by decoctions of chemicals -
And fix it on paper. (And I without that
Would not know your work.) Where does the art lie
In this? Perhaps one should not question
The method if the image is beautiful. 27/05/04
I took to London a scrap of paper
As the basis for a proposed poem. When there
I wrote a poem on an entirely different
Subject. What would you do with the idea
Underlying the other poem? Would you send it
To the vast Hades where unwritten poems 21/05/04
Provoke no echoes? Or should I attempt
To waken it like a lazy dragon to find
If it has fire in it? I have given myself
This fresh temptation - to note my thoughts down
In Parnassian, rather than poetry, to you. 26/05/04
I keep meaning to write to you about
The D-Day landings (a subject which is now
Fraying Jane’s patience - which nearly
Diverts me). But these men strode ashore,
Death roaring in their faces, starkly
Felling companions to right and left,
Before and behind. Some fell in futile ways
Drowned before landing, some in courageous ways
Daring death’s bullets. And no doubt
Some died in cowardly ways. How would I
Have stood, charged or wallowed? I am
Glad not to have been tested, yet envious
Of the chance they had. But with it all
Is mingled the conscience of someone who would
Have been a conscientious objector. Hitler,
Wolf of Europe - but as much more savage
Than a wolf as only a man can be,
But as savage as only a product of civilization 10/06/04
Can be - demanded defeat. The warriors
Fought a good fight, and their losses were great:
They were killers loosening men over
The trapdoor of eternity. For our liberty 11/06/04
They bonded men in death, or wished to,
Yet God has used it as is His right. 12/06/04
Did you want to be a sculptor, or did you want
To make sculpture? Apparently, I always wanted
To be a poet. But actually what I wanted was
To write poetry. There is a comment in the paper,
‘She is articulate and refreshing in talking about
The art of being a writer’. Wilde said he put
His talent in his work and his genius in his life.
I doubt if my claim for myself is true
Entirely. But the nobler position to take
Is to wish to make sculptures, or poems,
Or pieces of writing. The artefact is prime.
One day a boy sat thinking. He had read
Poetry, and something within him had a yen
To make the same. And the artefact
- In his case - had the intensity which construed it
A poem. (Probably in the interim he had written
Miles of bad verse.) 23/06/04
He wrote more. At what point
Did he become a poet? Three generation before
He was born? At the moment when the desire struck?
When the first poem was complete? When he had made
A dozen or score of poems? When these poems
Were published? The artefact is prime. Therefore
He became a poet when the first poem existed. 24/06/04
When one endeavours a making
On a Christian subject one finds
This crux: Christ must always be prime.
On earth, in heaven, in the heart,
To the Father, to the Spirit,
Or to the saint, Christ must be prime.
This is the reason why a hymn
Cannot be poetry though it
Has the spirit of poetry. 25/06/04
I am also, so I hear, a frustrated poet:
Now what does a poet want to do and how
Am I frustrated? A poet is attempting
To use language to create an artefact
Which is perfect. But the material’s quirks
- Like lumpy clay - prevent that, adding
Challenge and texture. Every poet therefore
Is frustrated. And that frustration melds in with
The frustration which first gave them the hunger
To be a maker. 26/06/04
For the reasonable man
Adapts himself to the world, while the unreasonable
Harries that part of the world he can reach
To remould it to himself, all that process of making
- Words, paint or stone - will, but only with skill
Create the artefact and maker in its image.
The skill is the key and by it the maker forms
The making which satisfies the hunger in him. 29/06/04
But I could set out on an imagined route
That I am frustrated not to have taken:
Begin keenly knocking by sending
Verse after verse to magazines. Endure
Ninety rejections until one hundred poems
Have been published. Assault again
The little presses until a third or tenth
Issues a pamphlet; and a tenth or third
Catches someone’s eye, and a real volume
Is published. More knocking, some readings
In public - or broadcast. An interview. Until
On the bus, in the street, some thoughtful blonde
- Next year’s Sylvia - recognises you,
Asks for a signature. Bites a cheek. 03/07/04
Waiting for my computer to wake this morning
I remember that there are many things
I meant to tell you - time rolls past me,
Trivial and serious moments swirling
And eddying. We watched on holiday a few
Rivers, or windings of the river Dee.
But in what way is the river Dee I saw
At Llangollen the same river that I saw
At Ecclestone? Perhaps as similar as the boy
Born fifty years ago and the person
Who inhabits the same name and genes. 28/07/04
Dr Paul advises presidents and brings peace:
Brother Yun secures souls for the Master;
Kathryn Kuhlman was the instrument of miracles.
My presumption is that I have more light than them.
But light brings power: it is an energy source:
As for me, the energy dissipates in clouds,
The shadow of self falls on my receptors.
My excuse is that I have been allocated to the band
Among those ‘appointed singers to Jehovah’.
May the Lord help me, under the Spirit’s guidance,
To have grace as a praiser, power as a worshipper,
Leaving His servants to Him, and living
With the light of His love full on my heart,
Praising my God in holy splendour. 08/08/04
The more that happens the less time I have
To write about it; and the thoughts fade while
The emotions evaporate: five weeks ago was
Graduation day. I enjoyed the performance
Which, despite the repetitions, did not drag, 11/08/04
Since for each graduate it was their moment.
As the day progressed I became melancholy
Thinking of the end which graduation meant
And the world they were to metamorphose into.
But as time progressed I began to realise
A large part of the melancholy was jealousy 17/08/04
And the rapid approach of becoming fifty -
With the flesh still jabbing about lost ambitions. 18/08/04
I’m on the bus in London again:
There is one other white person on the bus
Though why that is worthy of comment
I don t know. We are all God’s creatures,
Objects of His grace. We all have the fears
And hopes which attracted your artistry,
All the same need of Christ the Redeemer.
How good to consider the kings and priests
Which God has as the product of Christ’s redemption. 24/08/04
I think, Gislebertus, that we should induct
Shishkin into our hall of fame. (I nearly
Said, ‘heroes’!) Because for him the fact
Engendered the artefact; the tree or forest
Become The Tree and The Forest but the myth
Does not make the tree or forest misty,
As he glories in their actuality. They name
A landscape, ‘Amidst the Spreading Vale’ -
But that archaic terminology misleads:
A strath spreads; a path leads into it;
Weeds sprout, a river is a white
Distant curve; but dominant, muscled,
One vast tree, eclipsing
The sky - Queen of the Broad Carse.
And the trees in ‘Wind-Fallen Trees’
Rot and grow mosses, branches in ‘Winter’
Break to the snow’s weight; felling
Edges the Mixed Forest, always
The artefact draws its power from the fact.
And people walk the exhibition smiling. 25/08/04
Parent’s night brings the next excitement,
Entering school again with the smell of learning
Which tightens my brain; why did I ever have to
Launch from that haven into the turbulent waters
Of living? ‘Oh, why was I ever decanted?’
No doubt the long memory glosses
The actuality. There were hopeless teachers, unfriends,
Exams and failures: chemistry misforming,
Physics being dull. But the ambience lives
As the great hours of memory, enlivened
By friends, and structures forming in my mind. 02/09/04
Does it make sense to you to say -
‘The author is not a politician, meaning
A person who makes history. Neither is he
A historian, meaning a person who describes
Historical acts. He is a poet.
And in so saying, does not have in mind
The no doubt meaningless fact of writing verse
But rather a specific way of experiencing
All experience, which includes the workings of history;
He connects phenomena, facts and events
And expresses them in a certain specific way.
That is a quotation from Aleksander Wat,
Polish poet. It is an attempt which provokes
The questions which suggest that it has itself
Asked the right question. Remember the boy
Who wrote verse? Did he become a poet
When he experienced things in the way in which
A poet experiences them? Does this detract from or
Explain the artefact? If the fact of
Writing verse is accepted to be meaningless
Does this not elevate the experience
Or the sensibility to steal the artefact’s primeness? 09/04
The essence of being a Christian is, to me,
That not only does God love me
With warm sunshine of His love, but
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
Each wrap me in the warm blanket of love. 24/09/04
Firstly, I have to consider how I should (See appendix)
Respond to an icon. If I regard it
As an object of worship I must regard it
As an object of horror. 16/09/04
Do I make allowance
For an age of ignorance, or of illiteracy? 23/09/04
Or is that simply to excuse the wrong of sight
Subverting faith? And do these images
Attract the flesh only? Yet I love 24/09/04
Your Joseph - alert to the way ahead,
Forging a route through the wilderness. The Child
Is alert too - and alert towards us. How was it
For the Lord as a Child to go the ways trodden
By the ancient refugees from Egypt?
And to return being the Son
Called out of Egypt who would perfect
The servant’s path Israel had left imperfect? 25/09/04
The sculpture - like these lines - is for a time,
A seen thing. The unseen is eternal. My lines
Attempt to express what defies expression,
With the concern that the unseen, between the lines,
Delineates something eternal, since my soul
Has faith’s bonding to the eternal God. 27/09/04
Mary is background. I sometimes wonder
If there is an over-reaction against Mariolatry
Which does not give her the place demanded
By the truth. 28/09/04
She would not herself have demanded it. 30/09/04
So, Gislebertus, I have bought a notebook,
And even started it, specially for you.
So I am writing at Paddington station
While waiting for my hotel bedroom to be ready,
And for a visit to Shepherds Bush. Awaiting,
Of course, God’s Son from heaven, Jesus
Our Deliverer from the coming wrath
Which your skill depicted - but no doubt depicted
With only a whiff of the horror that will be there.
I’ve just read Steve’s word and his reference
To the great white throne as a blessed place,
A thought which I recoil from even as I accept it.
All will be finished which is contrary to God
And how blessed that is.
I have an address
Due on Saturday, if the Lord will. A theme
I thought of but will not pursue, is to ask,
‘Why should we love Christ’s appearing?’ 05/10/04
A day later and again near Paddington,
Waiting for my steak, I consider the question.
Do I start at the feeblest reason and - not distinguishing
The rapture - say that I will be relieved
Of these bounds - gravity, and the flesh, really
And symbolically, and sin? My eyes shall be as freed
From tears as my life from the need of tears.
Or continue from my view to say that I will
Be as transformed from what I am as the music
Exceeds the score, more better than the clipper
Is better than its blueprint.
Do not underrate
These blessings. There could only be one blessing
Superior. How superior! And I shall have it too,
That I shall have Jesus Himself filling
Spiritual senses - I shall see His face!
I shall hear His voice! His embrace,
His garments savour and His fruit’s sweetness!
And what that day will be to me
Will be replicated in every one of the thousands
Of those who love Him; I will have the joy
Of membership of an exuberant company, past
Sorrow and sighing, failure and trying,
Forever in the presence of their Lord.
And not only that but every family
By its degree of knowledge of their Lord
Will praise the Saviour! 06/10/04
But more than that
That unique thing, Christ’s assembly,
Distinctive in her capacity to appreciate
The glories of Christ, will have in view
His excellencies. She shall rest peacefully on the breast
Of her Beloved, never to go out again. 07/10/04
Move down an octave: consider poor Iraq,
Citizenry in fear, helpers endangered,
Resources disrupted. Not a microcosm only
But a metaphor of a world without Christ.
Love therefore His appearing, and exult
In a world where the Prince of Peace dominates,
Where fear and danger will have been chirted out
And the resources of prosperity will pullulate.
Where Arab and Jew, Kurd and Turk,
Will have that brotherhood of man which Christ,
Christ alone, will ensure. ‘At risk’ or ‘endangered’ 13/10/04
Will apply no longer to God’s creatures -
The gentle gorillas will flourish in the forests,
The midges will flourish without irritation,
Blue whales and blue foxes
Will rejoice in blue skies and water;
Green grass, fresh after tender
Rains will mother forth green snakes
Happily deprived of poison and horror.
Crops on the mountains, the rough places smoothed -
For all things Christ will be the stability of their times.
But what will it be to the Holy Spirit
To see His greatest mission accomplished?
Millennia in the company of the bride of Christ
Where patiently He has laboured, forming souls
Suited to the world to come - suited
Corporately to Christ; what His satisfaction
In that garnishing, empowering, conforming to Christ!
He will rest, gratified, in an adorned bride. 14/10/04
I had thought of considering the Father next
But the Centre of His pleasure is Christ. And what
Will that day be to Christ? The One who had
No form being the ideal to which a kingdom
Conforms; every tongue confessing, every knee
Acknowledging His Lordship and Lordlihood. 17/10/04
‘And when we see Him’ His beauty will be to us
Satisfied admiration. He will be acclaimed
And surrounded by men, a Man of gladness
And gratified with joy, the One to whom we lift
Our faces - acclaimed and esteemed by saints. 18/10/04
‘Then shall he sit down on His throne of glory’;
Then shall everyone be in subjection to Him;
Then shall the Righteous One be vindicated publicly;
Then shall He be honoured according to His worth.
Our joy is glorious, but how great the joy
Of Jesus, the Man in whom emotion is perfect. 19/10/04
He who has served ideally in an unjust world
How He will rejoice to serve in a world
Which He has made ideal? While the Father
Having all these things as His sources of joy
Will rejoice most in the public vindication
Of His Son, the Centre of unending delight.
But Gislebertus, when that great day is here
The cathedral of St Lazaire at Autun will be
Dust and fragments. Not a stone shall stand
On a stone which shall not be cast down.
And neither you nor I will regret it. 20/10/04
The people of Israel came to a mountain
They dare not touch, because the presence of God
Was there; we, through the work of Christ,
Approaching us, the work of the Spirit,
Dwelling in us, and the work of the Father
Welcoming us, have come to another mountain.
Yet the approach must take into account
The Holy One of God, the Holy Spirit,
And a Holy Father; it remains the truth,
‘For also our God is a consuming fire.’ 24/10/04
Of the lot I should have reported to you
Most is lost, leaving no fossil evidence,
Or the odd tooth, suitable for being
Misinterpreted. I have my new camera now
And a cluster of snaps. Some may be photos
And maybe one or two are photographs.
I am caught in the recurring question
Whether, and to what extent, can the product
Of camera and film be art? It can,
I think, but what distinguishes the artwork
From the run of snappings? Whatever transmutes 03/11/04
Verse to poetry. And if I knew what that is
I would outdo Shakespeare. As it is
I attempt verse somewhat convinced
That it has value in it, and the fierce possibility
That a helpful mutation, or an isotope, may rise 04/11/04
Which makes the strivings poetry. So snap
In case the image electrifies, or fixes as art. 05/11/04
I meant to mention Trevor Hold,
Composer, who I heard of from his obituary: 19/11/04
‘I suppose I compose because I have to - it’s
A part of my everyday living, like breathing,
Eating, sleeping. I feel I get out of my system
Fears and emotions by the act of creation.
I look on every single work I have written
With tremendous affection - they are my children’, 20/11/04
Which I am sure makes perfect sense to you.
Although when I think of the limited output
Of a sculptor it makes me wonder how you coped
With stillborn carvings. And what was the effect
Of a patron? Is the dialectic of thoughts
Battered with a patron contributory to the opus?
Perhaps it is analogous to my own diversion
To old-style verse - though I can’t discern. Swinburne
Ended his days in centuries of roundels -
And I question myself whether that tendency
Affects centuries of haikus. Like many question
I have no answers. 23/11/04
What, I have not yet
Told you about Ingrid Amy Ellis, my
Granddaughter, daughter of my daughter?
Did you have children - apart, of course,
From every single work that you have carved?
And as the apprentices left your workshop
- I’m assuming here - did you await
The gestation of their works, grandchildren of yours?
Forgive the nonsense, which you will understand,
Of turning all to art - perhaps that was
What Midas really did. Small flesh and blood,
Growing, pulsating, the issue of love
Of God and of parents - infused by a soul -
Is as much greater than the greatest artefact
As its Creator exceeds a human maker.
The Originator perfect the finality must be
Perfect - so long as she submits, through grace,
To rest in the Maker’s hand. And that is
Our best prayer for her. 08/12/04
Andy Goldsworthy
Tells us, ‘Art is not a career - it’s a life’,
But I wonder whether this isn’t a notion
Of the romantic movement. Did you see yourself
- Firstly, did you even look at yourself? -
As having a life which differed fundamentally
From the life of the stonemasons or joiners
Who worked around you? Even the ploughman
Carving fields and producing grain, or shepherds
Fostering sheep? And what of the mothers
Dying and suffering to provide children to
Person the next age? I would use them
Each as metaphors for artists. Yet clearly
Art is in some way a life - distinct from
The life of crockery, potatoes or petrol.
But for the Christian there is a hermetic life
With the Christ in God; that can run with
The crockery life, affecting its affections
Until the earthen pitcher is broken, and soul
Migrates to the realm, and vessel, worthy of it. 09/12/04
Words fail, poetry fails,
Art fails, Christ remains.
Grace suffices. All, all is well.
If it were my personal cancer I could 27/12/04
Address it in sonnets, converse with it
Even thank God for it. (The facts may
Test that.) But how have I a right to
Accept Liz’s suffering? Yet I have
No more right not to accept it -
For Liz, Mark, the family, for Rosie
This circumstance is best, for it is God s. 29/12/04
I have developed a horrifying metaphor -
Gestation. As in the ways of God a bundle
Of cells, formed as perfectly as sin allows,
Made Ingrid, so a bundle of cells
Replicated within Liz’s skull to form
Her tumour. God’s hand was with each;
And by a strange collusion of physical forces
The Aceh epicentre developed. All time
Is the gestation of eternity; all time past
The gestation of the present. Time present
Is, under God’s hand, the birth from the past. 30/12/04
But Liz’s tranche of cells is unbearable.
Yet we go on in hope, encouraged by
The new generation. Ingrid Ellis
Has spent all of her existence in 2004;
But its griefs have not grieved her - and she
Is centre of joy. And over all things
The bow is in the cloud; underneath are
The everlasting arms; around us a wall of salvation. 31/12/04
It’s nearly the end of January now, Gislebertus,
And I haven t written. What has occupied my mind
Has ranged from the tragic to the trivial, the blessings
And the irritations. Even as we think of Liz the reactions
Change. The invasive force within her head
Pervades more consistently. The assurance of
Future well-being is sometimes fogged by
The present. The bitterness of today’s medicine
Drives the health it is for from thought.
All will be well, said the saint, and all will
Be well. The test to the spirit is to know 29/01/05
Consciously that all, all is well - that this
Is the best circumstance which divine love,
And wisdom, can provide. (That’s a little easier
Since I’ve just been handed a free brandy
In the Buckhurst Hill Italian restaurant! Is that
Today’s blessing?) But it is easier to accept 22/02/05
With illness, which is clearly God’s hand,
Than when pressure results from my own error -
Only as I have done what is amiss
By mistake, it points up the excellence of the Man
Who did nothing amiss, even by accident.
At the airport now, after a pleasant meeting
With a little cash due I consider why
An airport terminal is the most tedious place
I know. There are people, magazines, papers,
Even bookshops, yet the tired urge
To move on, to home - or business even -
Turns to drought anything that might refresh me. 23/02/05
Why did Jesus come? - firstly, taking
A bondman’s form, to do God’s will:
To be bound to it by His strength.
But for us He, the Lord of Kings,
Came to minister, to be Helper and Healer,
To carry water and food. And as shepherd
He came that they might have
Life - that replete ness of life because
That life is in Himself. 25/03/05
Yesterday
I told Alan that the work of God
Would not be complete in him without
Liz’s illness. For we are in the hands
Of such a skilled Sculptor - One who
Uses each stroke with such efficiency
That not one but a multitude
Of carvings are formed, little by little.
For some, close, a deep cut opens
A shadow; for others there is a shading; 26/03/05
And for others a groove, subtly greying. 27/03/05
On stroke serves for all in God’s deft hands. 08/04/05.
How does a man treat his dog? Cruelly,
It would sometimes seem, subjecting him
To needles or commands, training its will,
Holding it by a leash where its nature would bolt,
Holding it by a leash where its legs would revolt,
Opening its body with surgery, if needed;
By this harshness he attains for his will
A workdog, or lapdog, or even a companion.
But however little the dog may understand
His benefit lies in the power of a greater mind.
May we have the dog-like trust as Liz
Tholes what the power of a Greater Mind 08/04/05
Doles her! Thus He trains each one of us
That more in this time He may have
Companionship. And for the future to have
Eternity with us at his feet, companionable
As well as worshipful.
And it is not all harshness
Even now. For the dog’s master caresses,
Fondles, speaks encouragement, and becomes
All that the puppy growing to maturity needs.
He provides it with food, warmth - and company
Long before it is truly amenable to him.
And what a Master is ours! He rescued us
From destruction, purchased us, and now
The caresses of His love! The fondlings
Of His fondness - the words of ineffable grace!
May I be helped to be trained in the enjoyment
Of my Master’s will and company. 09/04/05
In the composer’s mind the orchestra plays
Perfectly. He envisions a particular sound
For a particular instant. Instruments by the score,
Fingers by hundreds, lungs and lips,
Vibrate airwaves. There is the harmony:
Woodwind, brass, percussion, strings
Coalesce. One will be moving upscale,
One downscale, some oscillating, some
Repeating. They will move on. That instant,
That chord will hang ideally in the mind.
He thinks of how ears will transform it
To other minds. The next note will be as perfect.
That is as wonderful as it is. But myriads
Of souls are under God’s hand - working
According to His mind’s perfection to produce
At every second that perfected praise
He envisioned. And what will be the end,
The crescendo of excellence even on earth -
Hidden to the world - when the ready assembly,
Sounds gloriously as her Bridegroom calls. 13/04/05
Yet do not forget that at this moment
The perfect note for this moment sounds
In God’s ear. His wisdom has ensured
The movement from note to note of instruments
Tuned as they play. Each loosening or
Tightening has a divine hand operating
So that the divine harmony awakens. 07/05/05
I have sympathy with the artist who produced
A sculpture from his own blood - if the application
Was a little crude. Isn’t every work
Worked extracted from the blood of the artist?
And I suppose the hoi polloi always
Switch off the freezer. But I struggle on 08/06/05
Preparing sonnets or lyrics to celebrate -
Elegies to celebrate too - conscious that I could
Send a phial of blood and be confronted with
Similar indifference. The Scottish chieftains
Had their bards. And Egil’s ode - patently
Fake in sentiment - saved his neck
Since a king valued it. 08/06/05
In Wales now, after
Too long I have more to catch up with
Than I can. You will appreciate the speciousness
Of the last entry. I was reverting to
My old theory of art for artist’s sake.
Let me contradict that - what I was suggesting
Was art for communication: and that to
The artist’s honour. But - did I mention? -
The artefact is prime. 14/07/05
There are a few
Arguments: art for communication, art
For artist’s sake, art for the sake of art,
Or the primacy of the artefact. All
Are fairly right. But all confound
Themselves since they depend on the man
Ended at the cross. Yet every hymn has
Elements of something that relates to Christ
And to art. And why these writings cannot
Be a work of art is because they lack -
Or avoid - or eschew any denouement.
Which invents a new criterion for art. 16/07/05
On the way back from London I recall
A comment quoted from a writer - that he
Wrote the books which he wished to read.
Which brings two considerations - I wish
To read a book by a man who lived
In the consciousness of being loved by Christ -
Which to me is the essence of Christianity -
And who had considered Him as being
Near him. To write that book would require
Life changes. Fortunately that book has been
Written by John. But - for the second point -
I suppose that I wish to read poetry
Reactive to impressions of Christ in the mode
Of modern verse. Which is why that is
What I write or attempt.
Having written
Peter and Paul - to follow all that -
I would like to read the poem, ‘John’,
So I suppose I will have to write it.
That however awaits my discovery of
The apt schema. And awaiting that light
Let me contemplate the words of John. 28/07/05
So we assemble in Dundee awaiting
What? The Lord’s teaching? Or truth?
A jamboree, or what? What I wish for
Is the Lord to again swathe me in His love.
Am I correct to say that the only times
When the Father’s actual words are recorded
He is speaking of His delight in the Son? 12/08/05
Yesterday the Independent quotation was
Poetry is adolescence fermented and thus
Preserved. Jose Ortega y Gasset
Apparently said it, whoever he was,
This has a measure of truth in it; maybe
My current barrenness is simply because
At fifty or so the wells of adolescence
Are silting up. Is it good or bad
That I have kept them running so long?
But I am waiting for a new form -
Since sonnet or haiku, chained or loose
Verse are, at my level of proficiency -
Whatever it is - facile. I’ve rhymed
Place and grace, love and above,
Time enough; instinctive and distinctive,
Once enough.
Having rhymed face and grace
Once again I reach the odd conclusion:
Prose. And not that daftness, a prose poem. 27/08/05
Given that I’ve been to London thrice
In September I might have written more
But I was in the middle - or start - of
The non-poetic experience. Was it to last
For the rest of my life? The prose was positive,
Relating to Christ and His work, edifying
At least me. And ultimately I couldn’t
Resist a couple of haikus. The odd thing
Was that this was when Blessings found
A readier audience than I’ve known before? 01/10/05
When with joy I now behold
Him, when His glory fills
My sight, I gladly acknowledge
His rights, - the blest Object of
The delight of heaven - then
My heart bows down before Him,
This world’s glory wanes, every
Hindrance now vanishes, and I
Must be subject to the Son of God. 09/10/05
Back to London from Slough on the route
Engineered for me by Brunel, the great
Briton, the man who slung bridges,
Boxed tunnels, and drowned his workers.
Alexander Mackay was another hero,
The Stevensons grand exemplars, the museum
An engineers’ shrine. Why then did I never
Think to be an engineer? How I relished
Nate Saint’s effective ingenuities! ‘Handless’
Describes me. Yet I wonder what a difference
A closer uncle, rigger, might have made.
For I see in myself a pool of possibilities
From which a range of selves could have emerged
With the right accidents. Yet there is
No sign that Jim might have made me
A scientist, if he did make me a hill walker,
And nudged my political views leftward. 27/10/05
Having returned from a wet walk around
The office I add, Gislebertus, a few words
To keep you up to date. Prose has given
A batch of essays - in the attempt sense -
But has been more important for conducing
To contemplation. As with so much that
Begins to wear off - but while it lasts
It has a beneficent - I hope, hallowing - effect.
It is even harder to judge the quality of
Prose than verse, since we oddly find
We have been thinking prose most of
Our being. But it accords with the end
I worked on - antipoetic ally to render
Divine objective correlative into their
Literal meanings. Not that the literal can
Transliterate the correlative even naturally;
And this gives the possibility of every soul
Teasing out the goats’ hair, spinning it,
And wearing it into their own coverage. 02/11/05
For my next venture I could do with
About one hundredth of your skill - to carve
A few letters. For, years after I bemused my father
By referring to a concrete poet, reluctant
To indulge in rhyme, and sated with haiku,
I have gone concrete. It took a visit to
Works of Ian Hamilton Finlay
To start me. As always with Modern Art 03/11/05
I am wary of affectation. Perhaps the fun 04/11/05
Of it is disarming. But perhaps I should
Refuse to be disarmed. Anyway it gave me
This fun:
And a new expression through GRACENOTES. 08/11/05
But I must revert to an old problem -
May I legitimately learn techniques from
The secular poet? If I could learn how
To carve letters from a mason, whatever
His moral state - does the moral state
Affect learning techniques from poets? 11/11/05
The year progresses. Against all we imagined
Liz lingers. Her Poet puts to her
A last line or two. Her Potter presses
With tender power, carefully forcing
Fresh shapes. Will He yet take the wire
To cut from the wheel? We will see
Past death’s firing His ideal vessel
Matching Himself. Oh marvellous Potter! 07/12/05
Dare I add to my frivolousness, Gislebertus,
By addressing to you the thought arising
Now that Liz is asleep through Jesus? We
Have waited together, learning together
The Master’s way. I had not known
That the death of a saint could result from
A decision jointly with the persons concerned,
The Lord and the saint. I had not thought before
That the Father has a protective hand clasping,
And the Saviour a protective hand grasping,
But the Spirit is active as the finger of God,
Perfecting the work. 14/12/05
It had not occurred to me
How much I loved Liz, nor thought of her as
The nearest I ever had to a little sister.
Or that the Comforter could hold us in faith,
In dignity and power, or that the time of death
Could be a privileged and sacred hour. 15/12/05
But the thoughts and feelings fade leaving
The feeling of having been in a dream - or of
Being in a dream. From this occasionally I
Collide with the reality, the actuality of death.
If the Lord introduced the words fallen asleep
It was He who pronounced, “Lazarus is dead”. 19/12/05
No doubt there is some blessing in the timing
Of Liz’s death - in time for every duty
To be finished before a new year
Is born. But perhaps I am only selfish
In that thought, wishing to be shot of
The Year of Liz’s Illness, while for Mark -
And others - the test is only beginning.
But do not forget, “over all things
The bow is in the cloud; underneath are
The everlasting arms; around us a wall of salvation”. 30/12/05
Waiting, I remember the truism that
The waiting time is the testing time;
Waiting is a time of opportunity -
I can, as I do well, fritter away
This currency; but I trust these effusions -
Often written in waiting times - bank up
Some value. The God who is outwith time
Has provided time, and operated in time,
Allowing His Christ to come within its bonds
To demonstrate in perfection the use of time.
For us wasters, is there a greater evidence
Of Christ’s perfection? Yet what activity
In time is suggested in the Son enduring
Timed, three-hour long, darkness.
But an eternity of judgment God concentrated
In the three hours of Christ’s forsaking. 31/12/05
The new year rolls along and its various issues
Tag along. Questions suppressed by the year
Of Liz surface, fronds emerging from under
A rock. India first. Do I now go,
And to what extent with pure motive? 05/01/2006
Perhaps it would help to explicate my attempt
A Concrete Poetry, “Sentence for Elizabeth”.
Ideally it would actually be carved in stone
And placed in a garden. The title would be
A separate plaque. This is a monument.
Thereafter we are left to contemplate the word
And its relevance to Liz. The first two meanings
Are the obvious ones – that, from a human view,
The clear answer to any question about Liz
And her condition in the past year might have been,
“Grave!” And however much faith ensconces us,
Hope enlightens us and love embraces us
The grave is still grave. Yet the exclamation mark
Gives an echo to my mind of the address
“O grave, where is thy victory?”
But the title, “Sentence for Elizabeth” says
That the statement is a sentence. After letting
The judicial thought of “sentence” float a little
Recall that the only sentences like this,
With an understood subject are directives;
But who is directing whom? Take first
The meaning to carve – and I have graved,
Virtually, a memorial – but, each reader
Has that imperative. That is related to
The meaning “to fix deeply” since many
Readers will not be impelled to produce
A memorial except in their minds. And where
Have they heard the word “graved”? Mainly
In the line “graved on that stone of white” –
And who commanded that? An overcomer
Has passed over the river. A stone is to be 19/01/06
Prepared – did the Lord command an angel,
“Grave!”? Or did He, as I prefer to think
Do the engraving Himself, while a host
Of sympathetic angels exclaimed, “Grave!”
Or try again with the meaning that relates
To the cleansing of a vessel; we can consider
Liz launched in a fresh thought of a vessel
Into eternity, unencumbered by the barnacles
And seaweed of the flesh and its effects,
Hull, sinuous and clean-lined. Or feel
The Lord’s command to ourselves to be
Divested by the experience of Liz’s end
Of encroachments. He commands each, “Grave!”
Finally, entering her new Marches, inhabiting
Her new Land, she will find her margrave,
And enjoy her new landgrave, bowing
In happy acknowledgement of lordship, “Grave!”
(Reading this again I see that the poetic
Has swamped the doctrinal – accept it
As a poetic and not doctrinal statement!) 03/01/07
Did I ever go over with you my notion
Of the ideal village, such as will inhabit
The world to come? These are the archetypes
Which would dwell there: firstly, the priest, 01/02/06
For I understand that priests on earth
Will officiate again. Then the head man,
To a Scot, the Laird. Under the shepherding
Of these two will be the ploughman or peasant,
Garnering abundance; the shepherd or fisher,
Folding abundance; and the soldier or sailor,
Wars now over, pensioner of the abundance.
There will be the pilgrim, the village’s journeyer
To Jerusalem – for the nations will flow to it.
Finally, the poet, or psalmist, or bard. 07/02/06
From this developed the custom of testing
Persons against the archetypes. King David
Or King Charles, James Graham
Or Jacob – Rosalie, and Marina and me:
We have all been measured against this standard. 08/02/06
And since perfection in manhood is Christ
These have been measured rather against Him.
If He is Priest we have to expand the title
To Great Priest, for the quality of His priestliness,
To High Priest, for the dignity of His priesthood,
And for the scope of His service – Minister
Of the holy places. To whom else could belong
The title, Prince of the princes of the Levites! 03/03/06
And He is Lord of all; certainly because
Of who He is in those other dimensions
He is at home in, but because, too, 06/03/06
Of His worth, of His walk and of His achievements.
He has displayed Himself as Sower – but all
Of the landsman’s crafts have correspondence
In the Lord’s activities; but He has exceeded
By graciously broadcasting seed irrespective
Of the quality of the ground. 14/03/06
As shepherd
The Good Shepherd has expended His vigour
For us, and deliberately offered Himself;
As the Great Shepherd has forged through death
A path for us; and as Chief Shepherd engaged
Shepherds for our good. 27/04/06
But who is conqueror
Like Christ? That constrictor death, and that
Venomous serpent Satan both dungen:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro! 28/04/06
By the way do you like my new 01/02/06
“Homage to Giotto”?
O
Someone questioned my referring to Christ
As a pilgrim. To me a pilgrim is a person
With an objective – and who fulfils the description
As fully as Christ? For He came from the heart
Of God to the cross and pioneered for us the path
From the cross to the heart of God. 04/05/06
But what
Of psalmist? Each production of the range 17/05/06
Of poet and hymn-writer from Pentecost -
And the ancient psalmists and prophets – were makars
At the hand of the great Maker.
Why lament – 07/06
I started to say, then thought – why grump,
If the poems aren’t flowing?
So here I am, Gislebertus, in the park
In febrile and fragile mood, free,
Having just read all of Hosea,
Partly sitting on a rock beside
Arthur’s Seat. Reminder that my God
Is an alluring God – condescending
To approach me in that way. Ready
To rejoice in the fresh harvest, the corn,
The new wine, and the oil. Ready
To present Himself as One who repents,
By such repentance ensuring that His
First thoughts prevail. Hosea pleads,
The prophet made God’s sufferer, being
What he prophecies. But have I suffered
Enough to be a true prophet?
I break
To put to verse some inklings from
Hosea 2. And let me rejoice now -
“Found mercy” and “my people”. 31/07/06
Rain patters on the car, random
But seemingly rhythmic – is this
Verse-rhythm? I have gone on
To reading, “George Mackay Brown”
One source of today’s fevers -
Whether the recitation of a hero’s
Unheroics, or the continuous argument how,
And whether, and why, poetry grasps me;
The continuing question if I have ever
Written a good poem, and what
A good poem is, and if I have sold out,
Or used better this poetic sapping,
And if I could write a good poem,
Press. Let me move on now.
I am among the paintings of Canaletto now
And no one is smiling. I remember sitting
Writing like this in the midst of Shishkin,
And a wish for Shishkin is awakened now.
Canaletto and Venice seem to encapsulate
One thing to be overturned by the force
Of nature – in me. The best of the paintings
Is the sky and the work of the light, creating
Shadow; and the wakers waking. The drawings,
With wild hatchings, were they greater attempts
to communicate with, Gislebertus?
Beyond
This cavilling, wonder at the workmanship,
You whose drawing of a cat would be hard to
Distinguish from a dog. Wonder at the light,
Admiring obliquely the unity of lighting;
And remember he drew and painted to display
In homes, not galleries, to be lived before
Rather than scrutinized.
I didn’t know
When I set out this morning that I’d eat
At Saughton Winter Garden, didn’t know
I’d eat two yards from a bronze head
Of Mahatma Gandhi. And didn’t know
That I’s read as I lunched that Gandhi was
On the small list of people that George
Wished to see.
Did, Brother Gislebertus, someone discover 13/09/06
A new script in your day? And did they
Debate – within or between themselves – whether
It was reverent? Could it be used in churches
To God’s glory – or was the old better?
Did someone stew and brew about whether
Gutenberg’s print was reverent? Centuries
Had used the scriptorium, the ink and quill –
Could print be in order?
All this, old chap, 14/09/06
Is about the internet – and if I could use it,
Or should use it, for disseminating verse.
I reckon that in the world there are about
One hundred people for whom verse written 15/09/06
By me would suit their tastes and needs;
And the only way to make it available is
Internet. But two problems remain –
Pearl before swine, and David Brown.
My conclusion on the first issue is
That what justifies God and exalts Christ
Is a testimony to what all men
Should join in. But that the assembly
And the rapture of the saints are divine secrets
Which I will follow God’s example in releasing
Only with a password or in the code of types. 20/09/06
David Brown is, as often, the bigger 21/09/06
Problem. The nature of the artist it seems
Includes the desire for name such as warps
All human endeavour. Essentially it allows
Man. And the cross is the end of Man.
But you’ve got to do something (Man).
Well, Gislebertus, do you reckon that now
We should say goodbye?
