go out

there may be eighty seven

ragged souls in this loud room

how many known?

Not even one

not even completely

Look at their faces

caught unawares

at rest

hopeful or weary

peaceful or pain-full

it’s in the eyes,

gleams like fire caught flickering

rosy dawn shimmering

wild storm flashes

high-tossing waves.

Can I dare to look and see?

go outside the limp shape

that is my own soul and try

to see the shape of another?

Australia

Faces tanned and angled
by the fingertips of the land
dragged across bright eyes
and thin-curved lips-
the red rich dirt
the fertility of the earth
has settled into the soul of these people,
themselves soujourners
in this land which flows
with gold and honey.

-r.b.

The Studio

"Oxford had really represented to us two things so intertwined that we did not clearly distinguish them. One was the apostolic faith in its fullness, as represented by C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. The other was high civilisation, sweet reason, and the life of the mind, which was no less represented by Lewis and Williams as well as many others. Religiously, we longed for the lively life in Christ, but we did not fully see that we were equally longing for the lively life of the mind - the delights of conversation at once serious and gay, which is, whatever its subject, Christ or poetry or history, the ultimately civilised thing. When we spoke of the lively life in Christ, we meant keenness, to be sure, but we also meant the subtle discourse on the meanings of Christ's way that is, in fact, only possible among highly articulate and civilised Christians."
                       ~Sheldon Vanauken, from A Severe Mercy

It Is Not In Mourning

It is not in mourning that I cease to be
counted as blessed. It is not in the blackness(for at least night has stars) but in grayness &
fogs.
Do not pity me so, friend, in my wailing.

When I have forgotten (to notice the trees is when) you've lost me.
When I care no more for the aching horizon it is when
I can no longer smell the potted plants, just outside.

Because now, it takes everything within me to slip these words through my bones
like a refugee slipping through prison bars
and it takes me. It takes all of me just to say

It is not in mourning that I cease to be.

-a-