He forms hypotheses about himself
as one might lift a stone, standing weighing
in the hand; and then tossing it; measuring.
He throws too many stones here. The farmers
and the fishermen shout at him, declaring
that he is mad, tonguing their animal snarls.
The ideas pass, his poor mind a streaming.
This aim to hold on to configurations!
the gathering, of souls, of seeds, of rules,
of single instants, bothers him. He fears
that he tries to hold on to what cannot
ever be encompassed for retention.
He'd make a world enough for husbandry,
recognising but not greatly studying
the quick seasons of his own sympathy:
"all my bright ones operate darkness", he writes,
"unity of body and of soul" - "healing
through water and rock" - "love lust or sin monsters" -
"the whirlwind is synonymous with God
a being within a larger nature
which is in full possession without self".
[Elidius is one of the names of one who may have lived at some time after
the Roman period on Scilly, or, as it then seems to have been called,
Ennor. There is no evidence of him apart from the earlier name of St
Helen's island, where it is said he may have been buried, Insula Sancti
Elidii. His feast day is 8th August. Until now he has had no hagiographer. ]
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