Any poetry-quoting Jesuit worth his salt knows his Mary Oliver, Hopkins, Donne and Eliot off by heart. But if he doesn’t also have a serious thing going with Denise Levertov then he doesn’t have his act together yet. It struck me that I have never shared any Levertov with you. Here are a few verses from Contraband:
God lives
on the other side of that mirror,
but through the slit where the barrier doesn’t
quite touch ground, manages still
to squeeze in – as filtered light,
splinters of fire, a strain of music heard
then lost, then heard again.
Read the entire poem here.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Regina 10.13.09 at 7:04 am
Wonderful. I’ve been noticing a God-is-in-the-cracks theme (maybe it’s just me?). He’s in the broken places in Hopkins’ spirit, here he squeezes through the slit, and in Leonard Cohen’s Anthem, he’s (possibly?) the source of the light that the crack lets in. Makes me rethink my putty knife approach to problems.
Michelle 10.13.09 at 8:07 am
As a quantum mechanic, I love this poem. When you send a quantum mechanical particle through a slit, it diffracts, its image spreads out!
I would add Marilyn Nelson to the list of poets to know for Jesuits (and everyone else!). “Dusting” is a marvelous meditation on God in all things, and her Abba Jacob cycle makes you laugh, cry and think — just like the stories of the desert fathers of old. From “Abba Jacob and the Theologian”
…the theologian interrupts her first
spoonful of lentils
to lean forward again
and cut off the flow of God.
Reverend Father, she asks,
what is the highest spiritual virtue?
Abba Jacob looks to heaven
and groans.
“Humor,” he says.
“Not seriously, of course.”
Paul 10.14.09 at 7:33 am
Regina,
No, it’s not just you. God is in the cracks because that’s where we find God and, right now there are a lot of lives with severe stresses and strains. I love your image of the “putty knife approach to problems” and want time to sit with the idea for a bit.
Paul
Paul 10.14.09 at 7:50 am
Michelle,
Thank you for introducing me to a new poet. I shall delve into her verse with considerable gusto!
Paul