Sunday, July 20, 2008

resurrecting themes from earlier in the summer

Our dear friend Gerard Manley Hopkins.

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Gerard Manley Hopkins was closeted man of the cloth. He was afraid to experience the sensuousness of eating fruit from the orchard of his theological school. I love thinking about what his faith meant to him vis-a-vis his hatred of his body. He tortured himself in life and declared better but false selves in his poetry. He died of typhoid fever after some bouts of diarrhea. His last words were, "I am so happy. I am so happy."

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