When Poems Beget Poetry
“The day is done and all the fields lie fallow,
One thing is needful, one voice calls your name.”
From the Sonnet “Pilgrimage” for Kate Gross, by Malcolm Guite
Selection from “Parable and Paradox”
Sometimes a poem rises up and words pour out after reading another writers’ work. Here’s what I was inspired to pen after reading the above lines in Malcolm Guite’s sonnet.
#1
What if, plowing, the farmer
should find finished
the fields, sheaves all in
and bewildered, be turned
towards home to hear,
“no more, no more?” Sowing
done, Earth’s floor is
Heaven’s now, seeds have
sprouted, bloomed, grown.
Every soul planted in
Heaven’s soil is gathered in.
Home.
~~~~~~~
“Pray that we learn the lost arts of our past/The arts of letting go and sowing seeds,
That secrets of the lowly and the least/Might save us from the dreadful things that last.”
“In Praise of Decay”, ibid.
#2
Let things die.
Their death is fertile soil
for what will be birthed behind.
Why do we cling so strongly, hang
on to life, fearful of sure death?
Perhaps it is our own transitory nature…
we have eternity knit in our hearts–
we will live forever–just not here.
~~~~~~~
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You DO weave words together in magical ways, Jody. Both of your poems are beautiful! “Let things die” spoke to me in a way you may not have intended. Someone dear to our hearts just lost his job, but we are trusting God that out of the fertile soil of that experience, new possibilities will be birthed. Meanwhile, he has eternity knit into his heart; his ultimate security is not in a paycheck. He knows that here and now is transitory. Thank you for turning my perspective heavenward!
Nancy, actually, I had something in mind that wasn’t exactly physical when I wrote this…more along the lines of what you intimated–it is good for some things to die, to usher us into the next season.
So glad I posted these little poems. Thank you, friend.