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Contents:

Impetus: driving forces behind my work...................................................2

Poems and Essays:

Of humble beginnings..................................................................4

The Dead.......................................................................................5

Cor Poetica...................................................................................6

Lyric Essay....................................................................................7

Evocation of Neglect|Schwinn 1970 green Varsity.........7Evocation of Indifference|Pressed

Wishbones.................8Evocation of Providence|King James

Version.................9

Essay: The Bird as Symbol.........................................................11

Decomposition............................................................................13

Consanguinity.............................................................................14

The old woman...........................................................................15

The deposition of an unloved bird..............................................16

The Heart as a Holy Temple.......................................................17

The ignition.................................................................................18

To a close friend..........................................................................19

Fragments:

Poems:When in doubt...............................................................20A decadent

circus...........................................................20

Play:High Windows...............................................................21

Essay: The Function of the Written Word as Image................................25

Appendix:

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Selected influential writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins...........29

Sources.....................................................................................................34

Impetus

My inspiration drawn in these poems, for the most part, seems to come from impressionism; instead of representing an object or idea as it is, I have chosen to give an impression of it by showing it as something it is not. T. S. Eliot coined the term “object correlative” to explain this method. The difficulty, though, that I then have, is to make an impres-sion as real and lasting as the object or idea itself.

Lately, I have been ruminating on Deconstructionism: how words are merely arbitrary symbols applied to the real concepts they denote. My job as a poet is to close the gap from the real world and the written word. By making the written world as close to experience as possible, obtaining a sort of heightened state of reality in a text, the poem transcends mere words and becomes something new—an experience, or an object within itself, perhaps. This notion has many implications apropos to sincerity and my process as a writer.

Often, as I write, I structure my poems in such as way that they become cages, or constructions that I am forced to fit my poems into. This not only inhibits the poem, trapping it inside some iron box, but also disillu-sions its identity. A poem, as I see it, should be free and sincere—as vis-ceral and organic as possible. Ironically, in my process, I have achieved the opposite—highly structured and synthetic works. Therefore, the sin-cerity and even the reality of the poem becomes questionable.

By circumventing the concept I have tried to achieve, through writing circles round the subject with out ever scraping the surface of its object, my poems have become diluted from their source. This detachment poses quite the problem for revision. In viewing the text as an organic body, detaching from it lent a sort of “out of body” experience not con-ducive for the poetry. However, this internal/external binary within the text itself, while posing a problem, gives interesting perspective and con-trast to the life inside and outside of a poem; the poem as world inside of itself, in and of itself; conversely, the poem as world outside itself, or-dained by something greater than itself; and so on. Either way, to achieve the sincerest form of communication, one must avoid detach-ment from their subject.

If it is not at all apparent, much of my work struggles with this notion of sincerity—the communication between word and image, along with the intensity and reality of that communication. In fact, many of the impres-sions left within this text either directly or indirectly comment on notions

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of sincerity. For the poet, the only way to truly achieve any sort of sin-cerity, or verisimilitude with in a poem, is to narrow the gap the divides the written word from the reality of experience. In order to achieve this, one must be very conscious of the poem’s affect, or the intended affect. For instance, in revision of “An old woman,” I was acutely aware of how line breaks could alter the reading of the poem. If I were to stagger the breaks, in a labored way, the reading would then become labored. In this effort, subconsciously, the reader will find the tensions between the line break and the sentence and it will simulate the staggered breather of a crying woman. In this, I am not only achieving reality through language, but structure. Structure therefore must not only conform to content, but supplement it. Finding an adequate form for writing, therefore is of vital importance. For most of my poems, a similar reality was achieved merely by addressing the intended affect and nursing its needs.

The poem I have revised most ardently, perhaps, is “Decomposition.” I struggled immensely in narrowing the focus of this poem. There were so many tensions to play with: that of the body of the text in relation to the organic body of the crow, the house, and the human; the presence of flowers and the blossoming of decay; emptiness and finding fulfillment, ironically, through raw emptiness. There was a lot, indeed maybe too much, to work with. In narrowing my vision, I focused most on organic bodies—whether they be plant, animal, or human—within the text. The resulting revision has a darker tone to it. An almost ominous tone, as if death is looking down your shirt and you cannot help but feel naked.

One device I wanted to work with explicitly within each poem was inten-sity. I wanted the images to be more intense—something I have been struggling with. By nature, the methodology of my writing tends to be a little verbose, superfluous, and filagrous (I know filagrous is not an ad-jective, but it is the perfect word for describing my merely ornamental imagery). By condensing each image and stripping the text raw, letting the bones poke through, there appears to be an urgency, or intensity about the poem. Fluff is a crime of mine. I have difficulty “killing my darlings,” but, I can say with certainty, it is not easy to murder an idea or affect that a writer clings to dearly to.

In treating each poem like an organic body, one not to be detached from, it almost becomes an extension of the self, as if I cling to each poem by some stretched thread attached at my seams. Like a body, the poem should be graspable, palpable, like the pulp of an orange. Hopefully, I have realized these goals, for they are my impetus.

But above all, it should be important to close the gap between what is written and what is experienced.

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Of humble beginnings.

The apple falls from its bough. Like a half bitten heart, bruised and juicy, it lay there pumping, rotting, becoming the seed that breeds more spoil than the soil can tolerate; the selfsame marl, the very clay through whose nostrils were breathed the life of Adam.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

The potter molds his loamy cup for filling with wine squeezed from the vine, the grapes of wrath, but when it’s full, he pours more still to swal-low up the cup to swell a progress; but whose blood is used for filling—the potter’s or the grapes?

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

His cheeks are thin, his hair is spare, yet the timbre of his heart is fair for now, that is. Though the light of his eyes have left his pupils in youth, the strings of his heart still swell with music; reverberating, vibrating, plucked by a love not his own . . . not his own . . . never his own.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

The hummingbird without fruit or nectar does not sing as low a song; nor does a dove when presented with God’s grandeur hide; nor a crafty crow fill the air with lesser music—What a double edged sword it is to love and aim, and be neither blunt of heart or humble enough to hit the mark.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

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The Dead

In a distant room roost molting love-birds, ladled in the unctuous milk of their warble tongues and crescent orange slices filled with tissue wrapped juices. Their feathers float like ageless winds whose self-same voice has stirred and droned long before there were songs to embellish and distant naked lovebirds to cage; in adjacent rooms, a man doffs a felt hat, a boy fingers the dial of a rotary phone while his mother vacuums the oriental rug, and curtains swell with breezes from open windows; but all of these, even the buzzing trills of love-birds—the mordants that swell from their throats and cry and spill like silken milk—by winds will be swept away like scraps, for it keeps stirring long after these have become whispers and died al-together. All cease where the conspiring winds spiral. What warring halves re-solve to make these pieces whole again? Is it possible that wind can flesh the dis-tant love song, carrying her to her com-pliment; the fleshed likeness of the song after its source is dust; bringing her to inner rooms of the body—the distant ever present body? In another room, a heart lays peeling, bleeding juices from its ripped tissues. Each great percussive pump keeps the time and tears at its strings a little more than the last. When the heart’s pieces are pumped to pulp, what ageless winds will make it whole?

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What will keep the time? No ears hear the muffled voices of the warring halves from distant rooms; the wind is too near, and it has never ceased stirring, and it has never known hollowness.

Cor Poetica

How you beguile me and leave me bare, to think of nothing but your gentle voiceand dark unsmiling eyes—oh what unfairadvantage you have; I, deprived of choice,must ask the skies how they articulateyour voice, your light, for lacking words my own,appealing to the moons will soon abatemy muffled musings—how you’ve struck me stonelike, bloodless, raw—abandoning my heartto those black hollowed husks of inky wordsthat never will, nor could they ever, partfrom nests their own: those empty flightless birds.How like a double edgéd sword it isto love and want what’s best, but be amiss.

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Evocation of Neglect|Schwinn: 1970 Green Varsity

The second snow, and the sky is suspended as if by strings. The sound of it?—like the silence after an argument: it bears its black weight on my ears. Night is frigid, and yet I enjoy these walks, their white noise, and the cold’s privacy.

Beyond the frozen trail I take, a ten-speed leans against a weathered stump. Next to it, a rusted bike pump spills its hose. Both coated in a fine powder like antiques sitting on a pawn shop shelf. They rest mostly. It’s clear—they’ve retired to this stump. They’re an elderly woman and her dog, living in a quiet condominium where the weather is warm; ex-cept this is a wooded trail and it’s snowing.

Like the flaking skin of the bike, the pendent clouds reflect crude orange—but from light pollution, not water and oxidization; the sky is a filthy hanging sea—as if corroded oil drums had dumped their greases into its undulating surface. It is equal parts oil spill and equal parts insuperable barrier. The heavy sky divides the earth from God’s great grandeur.

I examine them. Tried pumping the piston, but no luck. The cylinder must be congested with bits of ash or debris. It may need grease. Either way the hose has holes and the valve is pinched; the pump is useless.

I turn the chain ring, the crank arm, and its scuffed pedals. The gears stumble, click and stick like the tumbling cogs of clockwork, but the chain comes loose and the gears push nothing. Just spiral to no end. They creak—a haunting groan. A squeal of metal scraping metal; like some inner wailing clockwork of our own. Dangling from the frame, the drive chain sags into the mound of snow beneath it.

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Even if the chain were connected, it wouldn’t matter much. The rear wheel is warped, nearly wraps around to the left side of the green 1970 Schwinn Varsity. Perhaps the injury that prompted its early retirement. Spokes snapped from the hub—sharp pin pricks—and the deflated tire draped over the rim. All evocations of a hollow skeleton with a fractured hip.

The crossbar’s paint is chipped, but I can imagine it new. Bright and glossy green. The seat post shining chromium without the brimming beads of rust like lingering barnacles. And the seat wouldn’t be in rib-boned shreds. Only smooth and lightly scratched by buttons on back jean pockets. But she’s cracked and wrinkled now, with a broken hip. Pity.

I stoop to the weathered stump and imagine the sure obliteration we all wait for. The eroded tubes of metal. The squalid handlebars without grips—like nailless fingers stained with blood. The shook off rust like dead leaves from a Wishbone bush. Yes, this is what we wait for. Even-tually the weight of the sky—its ominous silence and indifferent sepul-chral orange—will render the two immutably broken. Compress us all. All that will remain: a red reflector and the sky and the God that Lords over it.

Evocation of Indifference|Pressed Wishbones

I opened an envelope addressed to my roommate by accident. Inside was a handwritten letter. Blue cursive—sealed with a kiss that smelt like rosewater. She wrote: I send my love. Between the trifold creases, pressed flowers left oily smudges on the paper. Bled through to the ink. They were delicate Wishbones—from California.

Though they were not meant for me, the flattened flowers altered the pound of my heart. A passing moment that was impartial to all my re-ducible and restless contents, like the wooden spoon in the chambers of my chest, stirring my rich blood; or the spark in my pen smoldering at the tip; or even the big hipped spider crawling under my skin, spinning her silken net full of filamentous filagree; but after this moment, my heart will be pressed to a pulp between the pages of some book on love; I’ll be fed back to the earth and God, becoming the dust He breathed through the nostrils of Adam. Love is proof of God’s existence; the per-fection of emotion; as required for living as oxygen.

I handed the letter to my roommate, half apologizing, half expecting some grand gesture out of embarrassment. He took the envelope from my hands, searched for the return address, and then tossed it upon the piles governing his desk. Completely indifferent.

He left the envelope there. It coughed dried leaves from its torn mouth. Never read the letter or admired the Wishbones. I try to imagine her—the sender—spritzing perfume into the edges of the envelope, carefully closing the flowers in the back cover of some book of poetry, possibly

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John Keats, and gently kissing the white space next to her name. Her love is a filagree.

Daily, I watched for the letter’s neglect. Even now, it reminds me of a few lines from a Phillip Larkin poem: The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse—the good not done, the love not given, time torn off unused—nor wretchedly because an only life can take so long to climb clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; but at the total emptiness for ever, the sure extinction that we travel to and shall be lost in always.

The strands of my webbing had been snapped loose. Blood?—no longer stirred by that wood spoon.

I too have an old book of John Keats’ poetry. Oxford Edition. I bought it used. An elderly woman died and all her books were sold, including the Keats, to a pawnshop. Inside the back cover was a perfumed doily—brown and dusty, but with ornamental filagree. I try to imagine her, waiting under that heavy weight for a reciprocation, but rather than love, comes the thought of blown away kisses and waxy Wishbone petals: the breeze comprehending the leaves of the Wishbone bush and the petals shook off like dropping tears.

Such Godless disregard for love.

Evocation of Providence|King James Version

My mother used to tell me that The Bible is like one long love letter writ-ten by God. I could never quite comprehend that; how was love sup-posed to be long lists of “begats”—Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas; and so on—and vengeance that burns en-tire cities to the ground, reducing them to rubble and ash? No return ad-dress. God never even signed his name.

In spare moments, she would teach me to fold my hands and close my eyes and talk to God. Just whispers, modest whispers. I was told to pray for my family—whisper for God to bless them—and I was told to pray for myself. I asked for forgiveness, not because I deserved it; because I was told to. She paraphrased Bible stories for me. Would skip the parts about Samson and Delilah or David and Bathsheba or Solomon and his 300 wives; she never skipped the begats;—God begat Adam; and Adam begat Seth; and Seth begat whomever, until someone begat Abraham who begat everyone else.

She never failed. Would show me her Bible on occasion. Pages do-geared and the corners frayed. It didn’t always have a broken spine and hollow face. She bore it with pride—not because she savored looking like a Christian woman, pious and self-righteous; because the book was used and she had used it. She was so eager to teach and had such loving hands; even now my heart aches to disappoint her; it moans like the

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grinding of gears; like something deep—snapped loose and falling—sinks whenever I forsake her or the God who never signed his name.

That ragged Bible with its wine colored cover Lorded over me, not as a God, but as the manifestation of how God might be. It rained fire and brimstone and God’s divine judgement like slowly falling snow; the sure obliteration we all wait for. Like a story of forgotten love, I lingered for His response; but he forgot to seal the letter with a kiss.

Treats us like some sort of divine puppetry—that’s what we are—con-nected by strings. Do what is asked of us lest we be condemned: sing li -onized songs; pray not because He deserves it: because we’re told to; stroke His ego.

But that’s not it at all; that is not what He meant for us at all.

I feel impure; such ache in my heart and ribs. Forgive me, I plead, but instead of merciful words, comes the thought of snapped strings and fall-ing skies. Complete freedom. No divine marionettes or overbearing sepulchral heavens. No insuperable barrier between our world and His. Just the free and starry firmament: complete grace.

My mother’s Bible was destroyed. Not out of neglect or indifference; out of Love; we too are destroyed out of Love. We are read, over and over again. Our pages becoming dogeared, our edges frayed, our faces hollow and sunken. It was never the book; nor was meant to be. Only the realization of its Love remains—every begat, including Christ, that led to me.

Underneath all this spiced skin is a soul longing to be free. The old must give way for the new. The bike, the Wishbones, the forgotten love all surrender to that fallen sky and the God that lords over it. Not to die; to transform. Someday, I will transform; be sent back to the earth—to the clay we were shaped from—the dust God inhaled, exhaling life. We are pieces of Him. You and I are the signature, the words of God; the con-summation of every begat since our first breath. Yes, you and I are the signature of God.

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The Bird as Symbol.

I have a fascination with birds. They appear in most of my poems as subjects, for they facilitate for me a special means of expression. For in-stance, the symbol of a bird has capacity to connote so many things be-yond itself. This is very useful. Above all, there is something very hon-est yet primal about these creatures—something very attractive, a thing to be grasped. I feel as if I have barely scraped their surface. I have barely enough of their dirt under my nails.

To begin, I must make the comparison between my poems and nests. Many of them are bits of twine, sprigs, or other random bits that I have collected, all in an effort to protect and house the egg inside. What that egg is, I do not know; probably nor does the reader. But the egg is there, for if it weren’t, there would be no need or desire to read a poem, or any material for that matter. Perhaps the egg is life, or source of energy, sus-tenance, simple truth, who knows? I digress.

My poems are similar to two bodies of houses: nests and cages.

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The highly structured poems, the poems racked with thought or purpose, are often the cages. Before even attending the page, I set a structure, as if to cage the egg within the poem. Not protect, but cage, so that it will not escape me. But reader, this can be dangerous. You want and need the egg to hatch. It must live and fly, and escape beyond the grasps of the author—it must extend itself beyond the author’s intentions.

The poem as cage never allows the poem to leave the page. It is trapped there, and though it may be pleasant, it has no resonance, no deeper im-pact.

Then there is the poem as nest. This is the purpose of writing. Nests are organic, natural, and are made of the environment. So too, they lend back to the environment, and do not take away from it. These poems al-low for the eggs to hatch, the bird to grow (at what ever rate it pleases), and allows for the bird to eventually fly away, being free.

These bodies, like the bodies within my poems, have two possibilities for existence: transcendence or sublimation. They either reach beyond the source, or become one with it. In a way, my own use of birds is meta-physical: they represent the very poem in which they are subject.

This, of course, is not the reason I write about birds. I am very interested in certain dichotomies that they seem to circumscribe. For instance: ma-ternal versus paternal, divinity versus mortality, sincerity versus insincer-ity, and so on. The bird, working as a symbol, seems to speak to them all.

Birds are inherently maternal—warming eggs with their breast, offering sweet music to the air as if constantly humming, defending the defense-less. And so my affinity takes shape. But interestingly, my investigation of this maternity is underline by masculinity; a number of my writing is highly structured, lending itself to language that isn’t necessarily cold, but not welcoming. . .masculinity is used as the medium by which I ex-plore maternity. The effect it has on the subject, however, is curious. It never takes away from the bird, from its symbol. Even in my dilutions of this symbol, the symbol stays in tact.

Likewise, birds are constantly representative of the divine, a thing I strive for in my writing—to reach beyond myself, appealing to the divine for some sort of transcendence. By nature, birds transcend, rising above and surpassing all other living creature by faculties of flight. This also propels their similarities to the divine, particularly angels. And yet, the nightingale remains itself, we know it is not immortal. Likewise, the dove remains a dove, and not something greater. But they represent both simultaneously. Yes, it is the multidimensionality of birds that is most appealing.

They are both maternal and masculine simultaneously, both divine and mortal. And, obscurely enough, both sincere and insincere. Birds, like all animals are governed by instinct. These are very sincere, raw, and in-

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tense methods by which to live: literally adhering to one’s bowels and guts. But at the same time, these reactions are governed by instinct, something very primal. The reaction that tells her to warm a nest of eggs is the same reaction that tells her to abandon a nest when its scent has changed. This is very perplexing and yet intriguing.

Simultaneously, the “word” bird is merely a symbol applied to an other-wise indescribable concept, and therefore in its use, the concept becomes diluted. So if my intention is for transcendence, clarity, and intensity, how can this be achieved through dilution of purity.

This is why “bird” is particularly interesting—become they encompass so greatly. Despite the dilution, their essence persists. It is the symbol bird, not the word, that trudges on through the sludge of black ink. Many concepts and images become diluted by the words used to articulate them, and yet somehow, the bird remains pure.

This is what I attempt to investigate in the following poems with avian subjects. Yes, the multidimensionality of birds, their primal beauty and purity, their transcendent and maternal nature, is most appealing.

Decomposition.

A heap of crow molders on the hot ce-ment sill below my attic window: a bag of black and boney wings, a twisted neck, and spools of torn heartstrings; but

despite bold dereliction, there are re-mains of the most delicate things: flitted filagrous feather vanes, as if little black flowers, lilting to an arid breeze.

Such a scent of fatty blood, and how ripe the decay, replacing the battered

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window box I had of long since stowed away, and how poignant this dead floret

blossom bloomed: the bloated bud and molted carcass, becoming a pedicel of bloodstained flesh and chappy bone. But what perplexes and vexes me still:

why that sill?—the high window adja-cent the vacant attic room: the dust coated parcels; the few and nude posts; the scratched wood floors; the insulation

bleeding from the wall’s open sores. Is it because it is. . .what is the word. . .de-nuding? It curls my lips, the thought of being stripped, like the spare

barren attic walls. How by hap it falls—the light in that room, comprehending the pane. Perhaps this is the draw; the appeal that broke the crow’s craw: the

passing of light through the pane, illumi-nating that raw openness. All that re-mains is this passing of light: the flat amber friend spilled on the grainy floor

of this decomposition: the hoarse sun-shine that perceives our empty graces; from the high window filling all our skinless, barren spaces.

Consanguinity.

A snow in Maycoats knotted birches;the birds, they chatter, the finches and robins,ceasing between gusts—but drift moan by moanfarther from homewhere eggs rest in bundlesof plumage and down.

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After a thorough melt,the robins and finches,the matted nests, the marly roots, the mangled sprigsand brambles, the fruit that clung and fellwill all dispel formerhomes along with the lost echoes of their chatter. But inreturning to subsequentnests of roe, whose progenyno one really knowsfor certain, forall scent is lost, a mother finch warmsblue eggs with her breastas if some inner loamof her heart had beenmolded to do so.

The old woman.

She wept;her mouthwide open—not evenenoughair to be

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audible—genuflect on her floorseeking forsomethingdistant.What delicateand invisiblethread stretchesto keep our seams together?God, for allone knows.But it is too difficultto sew inthe darkalone.The sparelight fromthe whitesof her eyessuggest that this is wherethe soul lies:the eyes, half abatingand halfbeckoning.

The deposition of an unloved bird.

Sleek wings of India inkand black glass bead eyesare barely pitch apropos

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to the crow’s deposition:its brassy caws that crya scratched naked truth;for whenever a craw caws, no matter the gall, it is the most visceral of truths—the raw, fatty truth that nagsand occasionally tips the trashcan over at midday, leaving ripe garbage, half-bitten apple cores and sweating plastic tarpaulinin the center of the street for the neighbors to see.

The Heart as a Holy Temple.

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That private sanctum in the atria of your heartwhere the trees grow red leaves and silver rind

is empty and gated—I wait with bated breath. Its silence is a force, a deafening pressure throb,

a murmur of running water, and delicate music solely—like the trills of birds whose bones are hollow

and the snapping of twigs that follow bare feet—can fill the chamber where your thick blood is churned

beat after beat. I would rather be Elijah, genuflectin a sun battered grove, praying to speak your language—

that warble tongue. I would ask, Let me enjoy the sun’sfiltered light through these trees, wrapping my shoulders

like a green garment, and I’ll yield your command. Though,in secret, my blood boils for the rapture: the morning

angels diving from your heart—those blazen chariotsdrawn by winged horses—take me to that soundless sanctuary

locked in a grove I could not touch or hold,whose blood caked streets are paved with gold.

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The ignition.

I am a slant brick chimneywith a charred foundation,

though somehow, youhave spared my cellar doors.

No fire was borne of my hands, but you, like a tinderbox, ignited

in my dark cellar, reaping some deepseed in the burning sillion of my soul.

You cultured it, let it spread, andlike some sick kernel it sprouted—

you sprouted—the flames climbingthe hollow wooden siding

sick with faded paint; climbing and spillinglike the reflections from a crystal cup

as its filled drop by drop with wine, or like a primal creature who has finally

developed legs and lungs, advancing out of the murky waters,

like an organism rapid, primal, and determined, yearning to watch

the dawning of civilization to claim it as the tender spoils

of tilling and toiling; though, somehow, I know not how,

you have spared my cellar doors.The posts supporting my gable crumble.

I crumble, and my stirred embers smolder for days. I am left

a slant but stoic brick chimneyand a pair of cellar doors.

What do you set on firewhen nothing is left to burn?

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To a close friend.

I. Conversational Sonnet

Remember the breadth of our sleepless talkson the future and love? Not much has changedsince those nights spent heaped in sheets and arrangedon the spare mattress below your loft. Clockskeep ticking, pounding the beat to a dreams’ waltz; they leap in and out of a hazyhalf sleep like dancers in a fog, lazyand dogged. We are star-gazers, yet it seemsthat so much depends on our plunging the depth, on tacking the gum of a wrinkled brain.While most pad on the pool’s edge, we are fainto sink and stare up to the night, the breadthof which: abysmal, like those restless bunk.We plummeted—to the cosmos—and sunk.

II. Those nights spent heaped in sheets.

Too many nightsare spent in a fog -where dreams leap out of a hazy half sleep like a studio of dancers,lazy and dogged. These nights remindme of our early morningheart-to-hearts, whenI’d crash on the cotbeneath your loft, and we’d whisper about love and the future.Even then, we were star-gazers, yet it seemed that so much dependedon sinking to that depth, on tackingthe gum of ourgrey wrinkled brains. We sought those poolsof starry light -where others would dip their toes, wewere fain to sinkand star up to the night,

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the breadth of whichabysmal, and we lappedthe wisdom fromthose pools to our mouths. We drank in that wineand were inebriated.

FRAGMENTS:

Poems:

In a moment of doubt. . .

mothers, spice your coffee with the distilled essence of your children—the ground bone meal of your infant, the toddler, and the six year old.

A decadent circus.

After tossed boxes of peanuts and popcornand the intermittent clamor of venders ceases, there is always the empty saw dust stagecrushing the flowers, the poppies, their creases.

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Play:

High Windows

Dramatis Personae:

ELI—the older of the two brothers: about 20. He is a college student: holds himself stiffly. He is dignified and upright, almost stately; how-ever, this is underscored with a hint of arrogance and shallowness. Eli dresses well: he is wearing khakis, a tight fitting button up shirt, and a tight blue sweater over it. His feet are dressed in argyle socks and brown leather loafers. Eli is pretentious, and many of his interactions with his younger brother err on the side of insincerity. Above all, he is polite, gentle, and patient, but only because he knows these virtues are valuable; all these virtues, of course, are underscored and contrasted by his over-whelming insincerity and inability to make genuine human connection.

SAMUEL—the younger of the two brothers: about 17. Sam holds him-self loosely, like an unravelled spool of yarn. He is gaunt and his head is shaved. His clothing is loose fitting: a pair of grey sweat pants, a loose green crew-neck sweatshirt. He is barefoot. Sam is sincere, but borders occasionally on hysteria and mania. He feels very deeply, unlike his “un-feeling” and hollow brother. This is not meant to be overdramatic; all of Sam’s actions are genuine and within reason. There is always tension in Sam’s voice when speaking with his older brother, as if there is some un-derlying resentment. Above all, Sam is obsessed with honesty, sincerity, genuineness, and so on. His words have weight, for he only says what he sincerely means—no fluff or “bullshit”; however, it is often difficult for Sam to articulate exactly how he feels or means, which lends to his ulti-mate frustration.

Setting:

The entire play—one long conversation—takes place in an unfinished at-tic. The walls are bare; wooden posts and studs hold the room together like bones; the floors are hardwood, and scratched as if they have been lived on; there is the occasional fleshy insulation bleeding from the wall. On the far end of the room, where the gable meets the roof, there are two high windows illuminating the room. Beneath them, and in center against the gable wall, is an old tweed sofa that is sunken in and falling apart. Next to the sofa is an old Sony TFM 8000w radio. Throughout, it is play-

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ing quietly in the background. There is an attic door center stage from where Eli appears at the beginning of scene two.

Mechanically: the stage must be tall enough for a man to crawl under-neath and appear from a trap. It would also be preferable if the set were designed in such a way that the walls of the set met the gable and roof, as is typical of many attics.

Note:

Throughout, Eli directly addresses the audience in form of narration. When doing so, he appeals to the audience from stage right and is lit by spot.

High Windows

I : I

(Eli appears left on a dark stage. He is spotted with a dim light that reveals only his body. He’s not looking out to the audience, but looking down at his feet, bashfully twist-ing the toe of his right shoe into the ground as if crushing the butt of a cigarette. He begins to speak . . . )

ELI: Three days ago, he found the trashcan tipped over; it’s contents—all the half bitten apple cores and ripe sweating plastic sandwich bags coated in egg whites—were lying in the center of the street, for the neighbors to see. Very simple . . . really nothing. Empty. And yet, it spilled everything—all of it.

(He looks up now, as if addressing the audience directly, and yet still deep in thought: pensive. The spot begins to brighten and spread.)

So much spilled from that empty galvanized trash can. (Long pause; no longer looking at the audience, but up) I felt . . . like a yoke . . . without a shell; completely skinless.

(Another long pause; a vulnerable pause, as if Eli is naked in front of the audience; the tension is finally broken by a sigh—back to the audience as if appealing to them)

The worst of it?—It’s beginning to makes sense . . . so much sense . . . to me . . . like he’s infected and filled me with his trash—a baptism by garbage. (Half sighed, half laughed) Huh!

(The spot goes out)

I : II

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(Light fills the room from the two high windows; after these are completely lit, other lights gradually begin to fill the stage. The radio is playing softly; there are intervals of static, and then finally an adequate channel is found. Samuel is sprawled on the sofa, staring up at the roof)

(Knocking is heard within. Eli enters without permission, having offered a curtesy knock from under the attic door)

ELI:

Sam? (No response from Sam; he doesn’t even acknowl-edge Eli) It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Well, where’s my hug . . . my welcome home? I’ve missed you, you know?

(Sam tilts his head slightly towards Eli and gives him a perplexed look)

Well, it hasn’t been easy for me, being away! I would have liked to be around, but . . .

(Eli, at a loss for words, stands with his arm extended at his side, thumping against his leg. Finally he moves to-ward the sofa. He unplugs the radio and moves Sam’s legs to provide room on the sofa for sitting. Sam has gone back to staring at the ceiling; he appears tense; silence ensues)

Well . . . (said uneasily, awkwardly, as if starting a conver-sation with a stranger) . . . I don’t know what to say.

(Meanwhile, Sam has gotten off of the couch, lazily, and wandered around the attic room, pulling sheets off of old mirrors and furniture. He pulls the sheet off of an old wooden mannequin. He finds humor in it)

SAM:

Huh! (half laughed, half intrigued)

ELI:

What is it? (Eagerly)

(Sam offers no answer, he merely gestures to the man-nequin and gives the same laugh, as if to insinuate some-thing about Eli)

Just like you . . . I don’t even know why I try. With an entire arsenal of words, I couldn’t appeal to you.

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(Sam still appears not to listen. He removes a sheet from a metal folding chair. Next, from a cheval mirror. He takes the folding chair and sits in front of the mirror, gaz-ing into it)

Well . . . do you want to, talk about it? Mother says you refuse to; she says you say there is nothing to talk about, as if its absolutely normal to . . . to . . .

SAM:

No.

ELI:

(Sighs) Then what? What shall we talk about?

(Sam looks at Eli, only for a moment, and then moves to the radio, plugs it back in, and returns to his folding chair. After a moment of silence, he stands up, flips the chair around, and resumes his previous activity)

(Coaxing) Are you just going to stare at yourself all day? Come on, talk to me, Sam!

SAM:

What is there to say? What do you want me to say? None of it would mean a thing to you, mom, or dad. I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear. You wouldn’t want to hear what I have to say . . . trust me.

(It is now Eli who is silent)

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The Function of the Written Word as Image.

The word of God, when uttered, has the capacity to come into being; to so accurately become the image it describes, and in fact, the reality it creates. Whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, our world is com-prised of words; not words our own, but words of a divine variety. Like-wise, we are composed of these words—utterances of the most intimate nature. We are the very expression of life and free will, and the epitome of God’s love made known. Analogously, Gerard Manley Hopkins re-gards the world as a creation of God’s Word.

God’s utterance of himself in himself is God the Word, outside himself is this world. This world then is word, expression, news of God. Therefore its end, its purpose, its purport, its meaning is God and its life or work to name and praise him. Therefore praise put before reverence and service . . . the world, man, should after its own manner give God being in return for the being he has given it or should give him back that being he has given. This is done by the great sacrifice. To contribute then to that sacrifice is the end for which man was made (ibidem) . . . (282).

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We are an utterance made being; the very reflection of the word of God. Being created in such a fashion, a manifestation of God’s word, with his very life breathed into our nostrils, in all we do, by very nature of being and living, we reflect his breath and word.

Converse to God’s words, wherewith their very murmur forces forth into being to create, our words are constant dilutions . . . they will never, nor could they ever, accurately articulate the image or the thought they ex-press. When I say “buttercup,” the mind imagines a buttercup; but it is merely a representation and not the physical flower. It cannot be touched, smelt, grown, and has no capacity to be plucked to ornament one’s hair. It is only a word spoken by human lips, or diluted even further by sym-bology and printed on page. A word can never be experienced. In God’s word, there is no gap between what is spoken and its reality. They are not two warring halves, but apart of the same whole. The object of po-etry, to close the gap between expression and experience, therefore, is perfected in God. Every word spoken by God, by extension of this defi-nition, is the most sublime poetry. That includes the very existence of the earth, its creatures, and its sentient beings. Hence, humans are God’s poetry. Before the waters of the deep sprang up into the dust creating mud, and before the heat of the earth forged rock from its deepest metals, there was the word of God underlying it all.

Col. 3:11—For Christ [the Word] is all and in all.

His poetry, his words, flow through the waters of the deep, the magma of the earth, the droplets of stars in the sky, the milken songs of birds, the aromatic perfume of flowers . . . all reflect his word and his glory solely through existing. But the epitome of his word manifests in men. We are the most beautiful poetry, created in the image of the creator, crafted in the divine Poet’s image, therefore made poets, that is, only when we ac-knowledge our given purpose. For if the non-sentient beings of the world can reflect Christ’s glory, how much more is asked of us, knowing full well the source of all creation; the source of all poetry; the very real-ization of all, being in all—his Word. Therefore, to be a poet, one must merely listen for these hidden words incarnate in all creation.

In this respect, the call to be a poet on the caliber of the original Poet is in actuality a call to listen to the Poet, and be intent with his Word. We are servants, messengers . . . proclaiming a message that was and has been uttered into being for ages, and continues to be uttered even now. We appeal to God’s creation, seek it for some divine presence, and find only his words. Our words, therefore, reflect his reality.

However, all of this is all contingent on the definition of poetry: the abil-ity to make word reality, to narrow the distance between the experiential and the expressional. But what a distance it presents; how impossible an opening to gap.

And indeed, it is an impossibility for our words to become reality, but this is merely one facet, a single stroke of the pen—the dotting of an “i”

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the crossing of a “t”—of poetry, which extends far further, even into the metaphysical. It is in this realm where the inadequacies of our language can be compensated for.

Hopkins, for instance, attempts to stand on either side of this gap—by means of reflection: in representing the image as a word, he must first represent the word as an image, not in a literal sense, but in the meta-physical: the relationship between words and images. Hopkins doesn’t merely grasp for the image the word is to convey. He grasps beyond. In this effort to surpass mere words or images, as most poets often do by in-stinct, the word describing the image becomes much more than the im-age: it lends itself to a word of ideas, or philosophies, whose very pres-ence in the poem, helps to shape the poem.

Most often, Gerard Manley Hopkins reaches for the divine. In all he writes, he does so beyond himself, beyond all images and words, to sur-pass them all and reach the divine, as if sending a sublime message. This, of course, follows his philosophies regarding God, the written word, and the purpose for which man was created, to reflect God’s Word.

Phillip Larkin, a poet who like Hopkins influence my work, attempts to circumvent the issue completely, and in a way, successfully. By virtue of questioning the reality presented by images, therefore, questioning the authority of God (for it was widely known that Larkin was a supreme atheist poet), he effectively discredits their representation in word while simultaneously reaffirming their existence by defining them by represen-tation in word—the very means he has afore discredited. For Larkin, ob-jects only exist when defined by language. Language itself needn’t sur-pass the realm of images, for by very nature, language reaffirms the exis-tence of image, solidifying it in reality. Furthermore, the world does not exist outside of itself, but within itself: that is to say, the world is defined by faculties in and of itself. If Hopkin’s impetus is to build upon the foundation God has established, reflect it and praise it, Larkin’s impetus is to deconstruct it, examine it, and ultimately reject it for a reality or truth of his own. Both are right.

Though personally I adhere to Hopkins, a man of faith, being created in the image of an ultimate creator means that we too are creative. Hence, Larkin, despite his rejection of God’s infallibility and ultimate creativity, becomes a creator through rejection—almost as if to seek equality with God. I don’t have a creative bone in my body; I merely reorganize the words God has already spoken. Like Hopkins, I’m a reflector. But Larkin, adhering to some inner mettle of his own, generates reality in his deconstruction of it.

I like to call these “the two warring halves,” for they present a difficulty in my work; analogously, these two approaches are akin to the war be-tween images and words—two parts of the same whole.

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One conflict I have with my own work is approach: should I reach be-yond, as does Hopkins, or should I subject truth and reality to relativism, make it implode/explode simultaneously, as does Larkin. Recently, I have come to the conclusion to do neither, but I feel as if there is an in-tersection where the two meet.

For instance, this junction can be seen best in the last stanza of “High Windows” by Larkin.

When I see a couple of kidsAnd guess he’s fucking her and she’s   Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,   I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—   Bonds and gestures pushed to one sideLike an outdated combine harvester,And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if   Anyone looked at me, forty years back,   And thought, That’ll be the life;No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide   What you think of the priest. HeAnd his lot will all go down the long slide   Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:   The sun-comprehending glass,And beyond it, the deep blue air, that showsNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

(Larkin 129)

The perfection of the last stanza is the admittance, the near act of submis-sion, in saying words have failed: “Rather than words comes the thought.” And a rather empty thought, at that! But this image needs un-packing, ironically. Though for a majority of the poem, the speaker de-taches himself from the subsequent generation, the object of his rant, there is a unity in the last stanza. Likewise, the last stanza unifies empti-ness and fulfillment, in a way that only Larkin could articulate. Al-though the image described is of literal nothingness (showing nothing, being nowhere) beyond these high windows, the nothingness is described as deep and endless—qualities counter to the “nothing and nowhere” de-scribed previously.

And at the same time, Larkin has unwittingly subjected himself to a pres-ence beyond himself. This void he presents at the end of the poem, though surely meant as counter to any notion of God, is infinite, a quality of God.

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Even more shockingly, the last stanza of “High Windows,” while reach-ing beyond, also pays homage to another religious poet: George Herbert. His poem, “The Windows,” stresses the importance of God’s grace, and man’s incapability of expressing it in words—the first line being: “Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?” Herbert continues to make anal-ogy between man and window—man being a medium or opening for God’s grace.

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford         This glorious and transcendent place,         To be a window, through thy grace.

(Herbert)

This lends a very interesting reading to Larkin’s last stanza. One may notice that in this case, the window is closed. The sun is forced to com-prehend glass; but, the sun comprehends beyond the glass, illuminating this deep blue air. Even when Larkin is pushing out the light, it sneaks its way in to the illuminate and fill the emptiness.

But is it Larkin who is outwitted, or is it the reader?—is the last stanza conceit?

This, among many others, may seem a digression from my original point: the function of word as image. It is not.

Larkin has capacity to take a large truth, unimaginably large, and de-struct into its smallest pieces, smaller than grains of sand. He also is gifted in finding larger truths in literal grains of sand. His use of words to define and re-imagine reality is not counter to the creator, but akin. Though, it must be acknowledged that it is not equal, or grasping equally with God. Likewise, Hopkins ability to build upon, rearrange, and re-flect—to reach beyond—the words provided him by the creator are akin to the creator, by their very existence, having been spoken into being. Therefore, it is at the junction of the two—these high windows—in which the poet lies. This is where the word functions as image, and sadly, it is where the word fails, and becomes thought. It is in the meta-physical—the reaching beyond, the re-imagining—that word functions not only as representation of the image, but the image in and of itself, and the ideas beyond the word and image, the ideas that encompass both. We must be windows, for God’s use—letting his light comprehend our pane to illuminate the our inner vast void. The void made for filling, for creating, for reflecting a light not our own.

APPENDIX

Gerard Manley Hopkins | Sermons and Devotional Writing

Excerpt from Sermon for Sunday Evening Nov. 23 1879

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. . . I come to his mind. He was the greatest genius that ever lived. You know what genius is brethren—beauty and perfection in the mind. For perfection in the bodily frame distinguishes a man among other men his fellows: so may the mind be distinguished for its beauty above other minds and that is genius. Then when this genius is duly taught and trained, that is wisdom; for without training genius is imperfect and again wisdom is imperfect without genius. But Christ, we read, advanced in wisdom and in favour with God and men: now this wisdom, in which he excelled all men, had to be founded on an unrivalled genius. Christ then was the greatest genius that ever lived. You must not say, Christ needed no such thing as genius; his wisdom came from heaven, for he was God. To say so is to speak like the heretic Apollinaris, who said that Christ had indeed a human body but no soul, he needed no mind and soul, for his godhead, the Word of God, that stood for mind and soul in him. No, but Christ was perfect man and must have mind as well as body and that mind was, no question, of the rarest excellence and beauty; it was genius. As Christ lived and breathed and moved in a true and not a phantom hu-man body and in that laboured, suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried; as he merited by acts of his human will; so he reasoned and planned and invented by acts of his own human genius, genius made per-fect by wisdom of its own, not the divine wisdom only.

Spiritual Exercise

Aug. 7 1882—God’s utterance of himself in himself is God the Word, outside himself is this world. This world then is word, expression, news of God. Therefore its end, its purpose, its purport, its meaning is God and its life or work to name and praise him. Therefore praise put before reverence and service . . . the world, man, should after its own manner give God being in return for the being he has given it or should give him back that being he has given. This is done by the great sacrifice. To contribute then to that sacrifice is the end for which man was made (ibi-dem)

THE PRINCIPLE OR FOUNDATION

Homo creatus est—Creation the making out of nothing, bringing from nothing into being: once there was nothing, then lo, this huge world was there. How great a work of power!

. . . Why did God create?—Not for sport, not for nothing. Every sensible man has a purpose in all he does, every workman has a use for every ob-ject he makes. Much more has God a purpose, an end, a meaning in his work. He meant the world to give him praise, reverence and service: to give him glory . . . .

The creation does praise God, does reflect honour on him, is of service to him, and yet the praises fall short; the honour is like none, less than a buttercup to a king; the service is of no service to him. In other words he does not need it. He has infinite glory without it and what is in-

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finite can be made no bigger. Nevertheless he takes it: he wishes it, ask it, commands it, he enforces it, he gets it.

The sun and stars shining glorify God. They stand where he placed them, they move where he bid them. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God’. They glorify God, but they do not know it. The birds sing to him, the thunder speaks of his terror, the lion is like his strength, the sea is like his greatness, the honey like his sweetness; they are something like him, they make him known, they tell of him, they give him glory, but they do not know they do, they do not know him, they never can, they are brute things that only think of food or think of nothing. This then is poor praise, faint reverence, slight service, dull glory. Neverthe-less what they can they always do.

But amidst them all is man, man and the angels: we will speak of man. Man was created. Like the rest then to praise, reverence, and serve God; to give him glory. He does so, even by his being, beyond all visible crea-tures: ‘What a piece of work is man!’ (Expand by ‘Domine, Dominus, quam admirabile etc . . . Quid est homo . . . Minuisti eum paulo minus ab angelis’.) But man can know God, can mean to give him glory. This then was why he was made, to give GOd glory and to mean to give it; to praise God freely, willingly to reverence him, gladly to serve him. Man was made to give, and mean to give, God glory.

I was made for this, each one of us was made for this.

Does man the do it? Never mind others now nor the race of man: Do I do it?—If I sin I do not: how can I dishonour God and honour him? wil-fully dishonour him and yet be meaning to honour him? choose to dis-obey him and mean to serve him? . . .

. . . we can repent our sins and begin to give God glory. The moment we do this we reach the end of our being, we do and we are what we were made for, we make it worth God’s while to have created us. This is a comforting thought: we need not wait in fear till death; any day, any minute we bless God for out being or for anything, for food, for sunlight, we do and are what we were meant for, made for—things that give and mean to give God glory. This is a thing to live for. Then make hast so to live.

For if you are in sin you are God’s enemy, you cannot love or praise him. You may say you are far from hating God; but if you live in sin you are among God’s enemies, you are under Satan’s standard and enlisted there; you may not like it, no wonder; you may wish to be elsewhere; but there you are, an enemy to God. It is indeed better to praise him than blas -pheme, but the praise is not a hearty praise; it cannot be. You cannot mean your praise if while praise is on the lips there is no reverence in the mind; there can be no reverence in the mind if there is no obedience, no submission, no service. And there can be no obeying God while you dis-obey him, no service while you sin. Turn then, brethren, now and give God glory. You do say grace at meals and thank and praise God for your

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daily bread, so far so good, but thank and praise him now for everything. When a man is in God’s grace and free from mortal sin, then everything that he does, so long as there is no sin in it, gives God glory and what does not give him glory has some, however little, sin in it. It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work. Smiting an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty. To go to communion worthily gives God great glory, but to take food in thank-fulness and temperance gives him glory too. To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a sloppail, give him glory too. He is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should. So then, my brethren, live.

Sermon for Monday Evening Oct. 25 1880

Notes—God knows infinite things, all things, and heeds them all in par-ticular. We cannot ‘do two things at once’, that is cannot give our full heed and attention to two thins at once. God heeds all things at once. He takes more interest in a merchant’s business than the merchant, in a ves-sel’s steering than the pilot, in a lover’s sweetheart than the lover, in a sick man’s pain than the sufferer, in our salvation than we ourselves. The hairs of our heads are numbered before him. He heeds all things and cares about all things, but not alike; he does not care for nor love nor pro-vide for all alike, not for little things so much as great, brutes as men, the bad as the good, the reprobate who will not come to him as the elect who will. It was his law that the ox should not be muzzled that trod out the corn, but this provision was made for an example to men, not for the sake of the beast; for: Does God care for oxen? asks St. Paul; that is to say, compared with his care for men he does not care for them. Yet he does care for them and for every bird and beast and finds them their food. Not a sparrow, our Lord says, falls to the ground without your Father, that is / without his noticing and allowing and meaning it. But we men, he added, are worth many, that is / any number of, sparrows. So then God heeds all things and cares and provides for all things but for us men he cares most and provides best.

Therefore all the things we see are made and provided for us, the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies to light us, warm us, and be measures to us of time; coal and rockoil for artificial light and heat; animals and vegetables for our food and clothing; rain, wind, and snow again to make these bear and yield their tribute to us; water and juices of plants for our drink; air for our breathing; stone and timber for our lodging; metals for our tools and traffic; the songs of birds, the flowers and their smells and colours, fruits and their taste for our enjoyment. And so on: search the whole world and you will find it a million-million fold contrivance of providence planned for our use and patterned for our admiration.

But yet this providence is imperfect, plainly imperfect. The sun shines too long and withers the harvest, the rain is too heavy and rots it on in floods spreading washes it away; the air and water carry in their currents the poison of disease . . . everything is full of fault, flaw, imperfection,

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shortcoming; as many marks as there are of God’s wisdom in providing for us so may marks there may be set against them of more being needed still, of something having made of this very providence a shattered frame and a broken web.

Let us now enquire, brethren, why this should be; we most sadly fell and know that so it is. But there is good in it; for if we were not forced from time to time to feel our need of God and our dependance on him, we should most of us cease to pray to him and to thank him. If he did every-thing we should treat him as though he did nothing, whereas now that he does not do all we are brought to remember how much he does and to ask for more. And God desires nothing so much as that his creature should have recourse to him.

But there is one great means he has provided for every one of us to make up for the shortcomings of his general and common providence. This great and special providence is the giving each of us his guardian angel . . .

. . . He counts all our steps, he knows every hair of our heads, he is wit-ness of all our good deeds and all our evil; he sees all and remembers all. Even our hearts he searches, for he sees them in the light of God’s knowledge and God reveals to him all that can be of service to him in his charge and duty of leading the human being entrusted to him to the king-dom of heaven. But though he knows and remembers all the harm we have done he will not be our accuser; where he cannot help us he will be silent; he will speak but of our right deeds and plead in our defence all the good he has observed in us. His whole duty is to help us to be saved, to help us both in body and soul. We shall do well therefore to be ashamed of ourselves before our guardian angel, but not to have no other feelings than shame and dread towards him; for he is our good faithful and charitable friend, who never did and never could sleep on moment at his post, neglect the least thing that could be of service to us, or leave a stone unturned to help us all the days that we have been in hi keeping. We should deeply trust him, we should reverence and love him, and of-ten ask his aid.

Here, brethren, I must meet an objection which may be working on your minds. If everyone has so watchful and so strong a keeper at his side why is there such a thing as sudden death, as catching fever, as taking poison by mistake, as being shot or any way injured, even as a stumble or a fall, a scald or a sprain? What are the guardian angels doing that they let such things be?—To begin with, many mischiefs that might befall us our guardian angels do ward off from us: that is the first answer to be made. Next their power over us depends in part on the power we give them and by willingly putting ourselves into their hands, by expressly asking them to help us, we enable them to do so; for always God’s spe-cial providences are for his special servants. They are not to save us from all the consequences of our own wickedness or folly or even from the wickedness and folly of other men; for we are our own masters, are free to act and then must take the consequences; moreover man is his

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brother’s keeper and may be well or ill kept, as Abel was by wicked Cain not kept but killed. But the fullest answer is this—that in appointing us guardian angels God never meant they should make us proof against all the ills that flesh is heir to, that would have been to put us in some sort back into the state of Paradise which we have lost; but he meant them, accompanying us through this world of evil and mischance, sometimes warding off its blows and buffets, sometimes leaving them to fall, always to be leading us to a better; which better world, my brethren, when you have reached and with your own eyes opened look back on this you will see a work of wonderful wisdom in the guidance of your guardian angel. In the meantime God’s providence is dark and we cannot hope to know the why and wherefore of all that is allowed to befall us . . .

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Sources:

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.

Larkin, Phillip. Collected Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2003. Print.