the glory in things

surely this is holy, the fane of circling stones
where dreamers have dreamed
for unnumbered years
that fall like tears or sunlight;

the tree that catches the moon in her branches;
the glimmer of the golden cup:
the divine light shines through these things also -
for here the hearts of people were lifted up,
up into the empyrean blue
the realm of love and limitless light.

the Holy One has rent the veil
that we might see the light within and pass into it
but loving these things - is this not also the love of the Holy One?

The Visionary

His windows were the ventricles of the heart
and the pages of books.
His doors were the exercise of compassion
and the mystery of love.
He spent freely of himself
to store up treasures of the mind.
The walls of his monastery
were transparent
and he saw beyond the boundaries of faith
to that central region
where all mystics know
the moment of falling in love with the numinous.
In silent contemplation
he discovered the luminous
beneath the surface of everything
and breathed
"Thou art that".

I wrote this at 6am this morning - I woke up and composed the first four lines in my head, and then had to write it down. Then I spent the next hour turning it into a sonnet, but I don't know which version I prefer, so I kept both. It's about Thomas Merton, translator of the Tao Te Ching, among other things. It's sort of an antidote to The Withy King and the Stone King. Here's the sonnet version.

His windows were the ventricles of the heart
And the pages of books. Though set apart,
His doors - the exercise of compassion
And the mystery of love - were open
To the world. He spent freely of himself
To store up treasures of the mind, and he would delve
In forgotten depths to rediscover
The Beloved within the lover.
His monastery walls were transparent.
To him, the place where mystics meet and know,
The region of the spirit, was apparent,
For there are no words for the light below
The surface of things. Only the moment
Of falling in love with the numinous,
A single heartbeat, an endless moment
When the whole landscape becomes luminous.

the withy king and the stone king

The withy king sits
in a house of plaited rushes.
His heart is a hollow reed.
The house has no windows
only slivers of light between the withies.
The door opens onto a secret pool
where he talks to the abyss.
The wind whispers
through the gaps in the walls.
His voice is the cracking
of a lightning-struck willow
with a rotten heart.

The stone king sits
in a pale house of stone.
His porphyry heart
is silent. He does not bleed.
There are no windows
and no doors in this sepulchre -
he only looks inward,
his own fear echoing
in the closed space.
His voice is the grinding
of stones on a dry riverbed.

There are two solicitors' firms in Bath, Withy King and Stone King, and I have often thought there was a mythical quality to the names. Then this morning it came to me exactly who the names embodied. I'm sure you can guess.