----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Burke" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: Religion
> Thank you, Robin. No, no angels in this one. I knew Rilke's angels of
> course, and read Rafael Alberti's angels sequence. A few angel poems
> appeared and then I consciously started trying to write more - as a
> book-length sequence. You can guess the result - cornball poems,
> sentimental
> slush. But some remained and appeared in that book.
Your penultimate sentence there, Andrew, is precisely what I meant when I
spoke of the difficulties of writing religious poetry; and the difficulty of
avoiding such slush is the main reason I welcomed the prospect of discussing
the genre. But how come your lovely Mirror poem avoids this trap? Is
it because you're saying less and allowing the more to resonate? not talking
about your own
feelings? Are there other ways of writing on the subject which members have
observed to be successful? found to be so in their own attempts?
[Personally, I find the same problems rear their heads if I try to write
love poetry, now that I'm 40 years too old to do it unselfconsciously.]
Think I might be brave and post an angel poem of my own, from my chapbook
The Hallucinogenic Effects of Breathing. In Hexham Abbey there's a broken
carving, of which a pair of feet and the tip of a right-hand wing are still
distinguishable. I
dare say someone will pull me up on my history of science here; but what the
heck, here goes:
THE HEXHAM ANGEL
My extremes are yours and God's. My carved feet
still walk this world, my right wing-tip brushes
heaven. My span is constant in eternity.
Of pure elements mixed, the sum of all dimensions
quaternioned between earth and aether,
I inhabit the sublunary sphere.
My represented form, substanced in stone,
has shattered upon Time's wheel. The Dance of Being
moves now with subtler rhythm, the old certainties
dissolved to brighter insights, clear perspectives,
vistas along superstrings, divine
invisible geometries. I embrace
them all. And though the bodily shape
your fathers formed for me has rarefied
I move as I always did between impulses of light
occupying all possible comprehensions.
Conjoining earth and heaven
my feet, my wingtip are unchangeable.
I'm well aware that religion, and religious poetry, encompasses far more
than the currently rather fashionable idea of angels; but they've always
been dear to humanity as a sort of interface between man and God. David, I
don't know whether you'll say that Christ has brought us to the place where
we ought not need these messengers. The fact is, however, that many of us
are weaker brethren (sistern?), and we find the idea not only a comfort but
artistically fruitful. And angels do have a Biblical history.
best joanna
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