Poetry

Resurrection 5

I’m looking downward at my writing table

And thinking of the world in all its weather

The universe. The all. I am unable

To write a word, put one word with another.

In my time I have been in so much trouble

I could not put a single line together

The weight of Being pulled me once apart,

I was afraid to stop, afraid to start.

So ordered, and complete, the universe

Is profligate and great and always endless.

I called it life, and that was what it was.

And I’m writing about how it was mindless

It had no point. But in the child’s eyes

It could be grasped by grasping these two handles:

“Your world is only ever yours in fact

You are its meaning, you are its subject.

“And God is life, and he is a subject, too.

The world’s not separate and outside a man

The world is a man. Life makes a god of you

That’s what it’s for, that’s true for everyone.

O Newton’s English people never knew

The scheme of being and the larger plan

What the adventure is and what must be,”

She said, and then predicted this to me:

“You must explore the two aspects of life:

First, the created objective creation

Which God created from material stuff.

Second, how all of that is an illusion

If it’s considered real and objective.

Such are the two paths, coming in succession

Which we will take.” And that was how she spoke

Describing both my future and this book.

“That’s something I look forward to,” I said.

Yet I was building still, and digging clay.

The clay is fine grit soil a bit like mud

And if you fire it, heat it normally

Above a camp fire, it will go rock hard

And water cannot wash such brick away

Such fire bricks one foot long will line a house;

To rain and heat they are impervious.

With bricks around, I made a charcoal stove.

You dry distil the moisture from your wood,

In this way: take bricks, as I said above,

And make a kiln and put a fire inside;

But let the flame go low and let it starve,

By cutting air off with a massive lid,

But it will smoulder. Branches laid on it

Will go all black and dry, and that is that.

Charcoal will burn much hotter than mere timber.

While I was working the child undertook

To tell the future time. As I remember:

“We learn to build. And then we learn to cook

And harvest foods in a sufficient number.

And then we learn to locate and to work

The metals and materials to mine

You’ll learn these three essential things quite soon.

“That’s three stages. The fourth is chemicals

And matter in atomic combination.

The fifth: electric forces and the skills

Of hand you need will be your education.

Once that is done, the sixth set of levels

Requires the intellect arouse its passion,

To learn the mathematics behind these

And study all the stars and the planets.

“And finally, the two types of the law

The civil constitution’s settlement

That governs human cities, then, after

The ultimate divine law which God sent.”

“You listed seven stages for me there,

But those are science of the objective kind,

Rising like levels of a mountain side

Like stages rising up into the cloud

“Across from Snowden at Dinorwig mines

Row upon row. But what’s the higher stage

When we’ve exhausted the objective science

To reach fulfilment of the pilgrimage?”

And she: “At last, a man must take his chance

And turn to God, and be God in this age.”

And then untroubled by weakness of words

Or doubts, she foretold what came afterwards:

“When you were young in Wrexham there were monks

Of Hare Krishna on the High Street pavement

Handing out books outside the shops and banks

Preaching a science without precedent;

And DT Suzuki was famous, thanks

To how he told of prayer in his account

Of Zen and Buddha. They were teaching prayer

To people who’d forgotten who they were.

“The icon painters put around Christ’s head

The halo with the letters: ‘Ho’ and ‘Oon’

Which means: ‘Being’, Life as a whole,” she said,

And then went on: “Our God is also man

And says: ‘I am, I am’, last and first word,

For God is life and all of creation

In such a way that as a human being

You have God’s life and let creation clang.

“Don’t be afraid to think that it is mad

To think that you are God, or take offence

When it is told you that Jesus is God.

When any infantryman takes his chance

To join and march, he counts a prayer bead

And breathes mile after mile of endurance.

He has his compass, weapon in his hand

His pack weighs heavy, emptying his mind.

“Just so the ascetic struggles needlessly

Needlessly if the world sees what he’s doing.

Both men are those who face eternity.

And while the one is sacrifice for his town

The other turns his personality

Completely inwards to face God alone

In stillness. Sunrise happens just for him

The starry sky is him and is his home.

“The creator is a person just like you

As well as terrifying deep old Beyng.

Relentless life, and pointless life, it’s true –

But if you turn inside you see the spring:

That you and the Creator are not two,

But one.” I carried on with my building.

She said that all these things would be explained

And other hidden things, before the end.