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Thursday 20 December 2012

Rivets of Darkness

There was darkness
and the darkness that was there
was on the face of everything.
And there was fire.
Cold fire, blue steel fire, semblance of fire,
semblance of light, fire without promise or threat. 
And there were figures, shadows of figures,
figures figured against the light, 
a semblance of figures, but figuring hardly at all, 
in a huddle, huddled round flames lacking light.

All this was there
because there was God, tongue-tied and silent,
a murmurless mummer of God, miming creation,
re-making in mime, His one misbegotten, the one 
for which a God could never forgive himself,
for which He Had from Day One made Himself
the invisible part of His world.

Only the hands,
the hands of a weaver stand out in their 
intricate movements, balletic with grace,
weavers in space, weavers of time
and spinners of space.
And the eyes with the hands...
two halves of a coin spun as one,
but in more than one space.

And then there was grace,
pure grace in a visible darkness hung like a blanket in space.
Impenetrable darkness, impassable darkness, 
a God-produced darkness that covered the face
of creation and darkened the grace.
Eyeball to eyeball the light and the darkness,
the misbegotten and the misbegotten's grace, 
stared back at each other like ghosts of the past.
Creation had needed the rivets of darkness to hold it together.

But always the hands were mesmeric!
One chink of light as if curtains were parting
and two dollies swam into view.
Not dolls, but mummies perhaps; inhuman,
but human in form, devoid of all detail,
as featureless as landscape was at the world's beginning,
the hands now a shadow of themselves,
hands behind hands, hands manoeuvering 
puppets in space, arranging their limbs,
the Final Cause causing 
one to sit on a tree stump, 
one to stand in a scene increasingly bland
as the window sparkles with light,
but is nothing but palm trees and sand.

This is a redraft of a poem I posted about 3 years ago. You can read the original here

11 comments:

Mary said...

What a creative slant you have given to the idea of God, Dave!

Brian Miller said...

beautiful man..love the imagery of the weaver, that whole stanza is just magic to me....and grace...i could not live with out it...

Tabor said...

The weaver has caught me as well. It is that whole tapestry of life thing.

Leovi said...

Yes, very interesting philosophical approach in this great poem. Greetings.

Daydreamertoo said...

Lovely. I don't care how we 'see' Him/Her/It.. there is prime creator and, it is good. It is man with free choice who keeps choosing the wrong path home.
This is really lovely.

Tess Kincaid said...

Biblical and beautiful, Dave.

Cloudia said...

mesmeric. . . .


Aloha from Waikiki, my Friend
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Dulcina said...

Brilliant Dave! Brilliant, Dave!
Same subject in January this year and today, both excellent. Anyway, I prefer the last words of the former:
...and the god-figure stayed as he was hidden.
Aaah... the weaver... I only know that I know nothing, but in my deep human ignorance I imagine that thing what call "light" here is darkness compared to His divine Light.
Thanks for sharing your words all through the year and paying visits to other people when they post a comment in your blog. I only pay for my doctor's visits!
:)))
Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in company of your loved ones.
"Silence is God's first language, everything else is a poor translation.
In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God."
(Thomas Keating)

haricot said...

You created one scene of the creation! Great imagination you have, Dave.

Dave King said...

Mary
Thank you for your kind words. They are much appreciated.

Brian
Yup, I do believe we'd all be in some great hole of our own digging if it was not for grace. As always, good to have your thoughts.

Tabor
Yes, a very powerful metaphor, the whole thing of weave and weaver, I think.

Leovi
Thanks for this. Always good to hear from you.

Daydreamer too
Yeah, I'd go along with all that. You've set out what I believe to be the nitty-gritty of it.

Tess
Many thanks.

Cloudia
Thank you.

Dulcina
Very many thanks for your thoughts and for your good wishes. Your comments are always thought-provoking. I look forward to them.

haricot
Thank you so much. Very kind.



Anunoy Samanta said...

Beautiful Dave!
and Merry Christmas :-)

Regards,
Anunoy Samanta
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