Poetry

Resurrection 26

“Why do I have an undistracted mind

When time does not pass, when there is no moment?

There is no present, so nothing has happened

Anticipation is not, nor remembrance,

The inner focus hears no noise or sound.”

The Duke explained this and then he fell silent.

I looked across the Irish Sea to Harlech,

And the castle on the hill. It had grown dark.

I left the great Lord there, with a salute,

About turned and marched parallel to the coast.

I ‘d been here once before one autumn night

I remembered how back then I was so lost

That I loved nothing, I was not alright

But went there fleeing like a sort of ghost

To flee myself and find a brand new life.

It took the bus to Harlech and got off

And lay down to forget myself in sleep

Watching the sea from above as someone might

Do at a hotel. Me, at that bus stop

I curled up, loveless, and without a guide

Under the castle. But this time, curled up

On that same bench, was someone in a suit

A dandy’s outfit, glasses on his nose

And one glass blanked out. “Can it be James Joyce?”

I said, amazed. He wore a small moustache

A straw hat was nearby and a walking cane.

In my surprise I lacked the means for speech

So excellent, that man born in Dublin.

“In your great masterpiece you made us watch

How Stephen Daedalus was in Nighttown

Having been thrown down, drunken, on the street

By English Toms; he was helped to his feet

“By Bloom. Like that you picked me up as well;

You were a father to me through your books

You raised me from the shameful place I fell.”

He blinked at me and smiled but by his looks

He answered, not with words, but with a smile.

“I came here in the past, the sea in flux,

The wind coming over cold, the air all dark,

All empty, haunted, demons in my wake

“When I was young. I close my eyes and then

I’m there again, the same. How I in Greece

Fleeing my inner emptiness again

Went north for Athos. When I close my eyes

I’m there still, heading there as far as the train

Will go in wartime, to the monasteries.

I slept and dreamed out there as well like this

On some road going nowhere, unloved, loveless.

“Nothing changes inside, it’s always the same

You’re always the same in an eternity

And the soul’s eternal. But if Grace should come

It does give wisdom. God’s hands are at play.

I did not want grace then. When I got home

I came here once again, by the Irish Sea

And Bangor and these empty arid lands

Reminded me of Corinth and Athens.”

As I compose these final verses of

My poem, structure fails me. It is hard

To make them cohere like the ones above.

I am unable to conjure the word

Or realise a structure to describe

The happiness I felt or what occurred.

So, when he made a space for me beside him

I asked him to assist me with my poem:

“What is it that praying does for us inside?

I had hoped that I’d have visions like Bill Blake:

A new world, truly real. I never did.

So what’s the use of it?” And now he spoke

From those mysterious depths of his great head:

“Prayer does something to you that not one book

And not one sage or saint could ever do:

It makes you become you and only you.

“Prayer uncovers the law inside existence.

My love for people, my people, my family

As an ideal and legal insistence

Both inside me, and out in life, really.

I loved Dublin not because of circumstance

Of being born there. It was necessary.

A law, an everlasting heaven-sent

Command. So I have learned.

“The praying action shows you the ideal

Which underlies the world,” he used his finger

To point toward the sea, and silent fell.

I saw the ideal love, waves stronger and stronger,

A foam of Logos, good and beautiful,

A sea of letters singing like a singer

Ceaselessly talking to my inner ear

Of the good and beautiful and real idea.

“The law to love your family and nation

Is written in the fabric of the world

As something pre-existing in creation.

And these ideal commands are first revealed

When you are in the state of meditation.

The guiding ideals of the human heart are held

At Harlech in this place at which this law

Is located for you, here the ideas are.”

I said: “Do virtues such as love and the good

And absolute truth exist in themselves?”

I was just like a child with bucket and spade

Playing along the shore while the great waves

And ocean depths lay all beyond me hid;

Great oceanic truth and hidden coves

Which lay there all before me unexplored

Too great and dangerous for such a child.

“By focus and attention during prayer

Our mind can focus, so the mind falls quiet.

Our mind transforms, is single and aware

Of unity and of the infinite.

Unspotted, and immaculate and pure.

Without the stain of living things and death.

And when it is onefold and set apart

It enters down into the rowdy heart

“And there your vision opens to the ideas.

The quiet mind in the impassioned soul

Perceives the law, and entities like these:

The ideal of beauty, and the great ideal

Of truth and good. This is the gift of grace.

The mind enters the heart and starts to rule

As you will enter into that high place

The castle on the hill of God’s logos.”

He said that you can force your way inside

But that the final entry must be made

With the approval of the creator, God.

Amazed by this, and storing what he said,

I made my way toward the sea’s cold side

And saw the foam of the eternal tide

Before I started toward the ancient fort

Looking for what in youth I went without.