What's a fillyjonk?
(It's a made-up animal. Very feminine. Somewhat neurotic. A lot like me.)

Read Tove Jansson if you really want to know.
e-mail me
Remove the part that says NOSPAM - that's to confound the 'bots
(email address: ecorbett@
netcommander.com)

 
Today is the bloggers' silent poetry reading.

Here is the one I choose for today:

PAX

All that matters is to be at one with the living God
To be a creature in the house of the God of Life.

Like a cat asleep on a chair
at peace, in peace
and at one with the master of the house, with the
mistress
at home, at home in the house of the living,
sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.

Sleeping on the hearth of the living world,
yawning at home before the fire of life
feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart
a presence
as of a master sitting at the board
in his own and greater being,
in the house of life.

-- by D.H. Lawrence


(And a little commentary, because I cannot resist commentary: like, I suspect, most Americans, I know of Lawrence mostly because of the (in)famous "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (which I have never read) which was known as a "bad" book because it contained sex scenes. (and I suspect they may be more tame than the scenes commonly available in 'strong romance' novels of today. But then again - never have read it.)

The only other work of his I remember reading is The Rocking-Horse Winner, which I always interpreted as a chilling indictment of the "need for more" and the foolishness of comparing yourself, money-wise, to others in the community or extended family. (although literary critics who are apparently more wise than I say it's an Oedipal fantasy).

Which is why this poem struck me so much the first time I read it - it seemed different, in a way, from the stereotype I had formed of Lawrence.

The poem comes from a little book called "Poems to Live By in Uncertain Times." It was put together not long after Sept. 11, 2001, and was kind of a "response" to the events...poems of remembrance, poems of warning against being too warlike (there is another in there, called "A Soldier-his prayer" that kind of gives you chills, especially when you learn how it came to be), poems of rejoicing in the simple things of the world, and poems in a chapter called "meditations and conversations" - which is where I found this one. It is the last poem in the book.

And I have to say, the first time (and not just the first time) I read it, it made me cry a little. Because I feel like, that is exactly it. That is exactly what I want. I don't want to be some big important person, I just want to be the equivalent of a housecat in the Kingdom of God. Having grown up with cats, having observed them all my life, the poem rings true to me, and there is also something I find deeply comforting about that image - departed souls curling up before God's fire, being totally at peace, totally secure, in only the way that a beloved housecat can be in its master's house.

But it is a comfort that is so hard to find on this Earth.)

Labels: poetry

posted by fillyjonk at 7:40 AM