Seamless. Father Ralph Wright
SEAMLESS
BY
RALPH WRIGHT O.S.B.
© 2011 Father Ralph Wright O.S.B.
All Right Reserved
Published in eBook format by Monograph Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-0-9840117-4-2
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POEM
a poem is an acrid
semi-ecstatic
immaterial
sneeze
breaking beautifully
out of silence
after a moment’s
pause
poised
outside history
taking flesh in scrawl and revealing
the mind’s mystery
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
only a thin
film of glass
protects the moth
as it bangs
again and again
against the light
in the dark night
from the sizzle
of extinction
ALTHOUGH DUST
(John 17: 23)
Although dust
I am loved
by the one
eternal
Son of the Father
just as intensely
as this same Father
loves his one
eternal Son
O mystery
O majesty
O wonder
that what we
in our wildest dreams
could not conceive
has been
by God's own Word
quietly revealed
WOMAN
within her
and of her being
comes one to be
who will not cease
she speaks each day
God's Word made men
uttered again, again
and again
into our silence
hers is a dignity
that none may measure
hers a patience
refined by fire
hers a majesty
unperceived
in the painful tedium
of giving birth
the mystery
of her being
echoes the mystery
of God creating
and out of darkness
Light
MARY
the young girl gazes
at the dark still waters
of Siloe
her smile reflects the ecstasy
of her surprise —
surprise at her young self,
surprise at God,
at children, priests, camel-sellers,
camel-dung checkers, donkeys
and all the Temple turmoil
of being NOW and being alive —
she feels the calm of that full-shading love
that wraps her round
and in the shadow of this deep content
she knows what God's own power could do in her
at the appointed hour
GREAT CALM
I am filled with joy
that God loves you
with great competence
for my love is infinite
in clumsiness —
when I wound
He heals
when I damage
He restores
and you are always
in his hands
O great calm
O mighty God
O quiet joy
BECOMING MAN
The humble moment
of total fusion
in darkness
and silence
seen by no one
heard by no one
felt by no one
a greater detonation
than any nuclear fission
and for a long while yet
no one will know it has happened.
THEY TRACE MY BLOOD
they trace my blood
through generic Adam
back to the first
life on the planet
— a continuity that does,
I must confess,
boggle the mind —
but God made me
as if He had made
no other one
no other where
for a Lover
each person happens
NOW