2 poems about questions, answers, roads paved or more or less left wild


My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

Thomas Merton



Please It’s Time

Time to go
Hello
I must be going
Don’t know where I’m going
How I’ll get there
Hire people
Friends
And family
I think
Will help
In several ways

Some place much quieter
Maybe without anyone
Above
A first-floor place
With a cottage
Or a monk’s-cell
Feeling
Even

While in touch with those
Around me
Still
But a kind of silence
(normal noise)
Predominant
So I may think
You know
And write
Something that I mean
That is not mere cant
To the bad noise
All around me
Now

Until it be then
Because there is more peace
Possible
In a new place
With
Who knows
Insulation
Maybe a care
For domicilic living
Each on our own
Together
When it’s willful
And pleasant
To meet
Drink
Talk
Reflect
Together on
Now and then


Merton Certainty
(with examples in the irony)

What shall I do
I feel too tired
To move around
To do
Much of anything
So what shall I do
It’s a matter of
Decisiveness
As well
Against the fears
That stall me
Like an engine
Without fuel
Or with
An enigmatic problem

Where shall I go
I do not know
Where would you send me
Lord
If that’s a possibility
Anymore
If I haven’t used up
All the opportunity
You made in me
On what has exhausted me
Left me with lethargy
For legacy

Sigh
It’s all
Tired confusion
And there’s penury
For by now I guess I know
What I would
Do
Where I would go
To do it

Situations
Simply prevail as well
We are not in a vacuum
Even with
Our breathing apparatus
We might be stuck
Or simply feel
In place
Without the drive from
Me or someone else
To change
To go
To Ulysses-try
Lord Tennyson

Were I a lord
I would not hesitate
Again
But give things a go
Since there should
Be funding
Even expectation
That I be on the move
To earn my title
Each day
I live with it

And this is why
Maybe
Some of us rob this
Place of that
To have a sum
To say
Self-deceptively
I only need one
One amount
For food
And exhalation
Then to spend
Of course on
A better kind of life
Maybe
For all around me
Or I’ll go somewhere
To spend
Until I’m caught
Or must surrender
In the other way

I don’t know
Except there won’t be
Taking anything
If I must say
No more
For I don’t know
How we might steal from
Each other
Which is
You know
The other side of coveting

Leaving eight
Commandments
To be bad at
As well
Though really
As we age
If we age
Nearer to judgment
If we get
To go
That way
We might relinquish
Mortal holds
On many things
Literal
Abstract
The things we always wanted
And the wanting

Maybe
I feel this way
Wanting less
Thinking less
Of years to come
Because I can’t
It isn’t
Reasonable
Except for afterlife
So defined
That as
Such we do not know
We are not sure
Precisely
How it goes

But anyway
There is a mortal day
Today
And it shall feel forever
In a part of me

Surprising
Ending
Maybe
(well
for certain)
But for now
Do what we can
Breathe what there is
Maybe find
A kind of peace
In this
Or enough ambition
Still or new
To try
Even
To strive
(lord
and Lord)
Ulysses-like

The conundrum of
Sit still
Or sail on
When both have virtues
Both are real
And romantic
Do one
Or the other
Maybe time for both
Taste
And see
And also hear
And use the other senses
To suss
Then practice
On virtue or the other

Travel minimally
Like
Henry David
Or take a chance
On the world
Like
Amelia


C L Couch


www.stjameslimerick.org/daily-devotions/2021/9/21/a-prayer-of-unknowing (and cited many times, many places on line and in books and maybe in sermons)

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