A small matter Whether I hope To be blessed, or despair With the lost, on the last Or any day. Enough to be Part and particle Of the whole Wonder and scope Of this glory. Cannot even The condemned rejoice That the Presence Is, and is just?
Who are we? Kathleen Raine
Ah, God I May Not Hate – Kathleen Raine
Ah, God, I may not hate
Myself, who am your thought, who made
Earthworm and spider, gave
Being to the burying-beetle and the maggot,
Beak and talon and teeth, hunger to all creatures
Made to be your begetters and destroyers.
I who am living you from the numberless dead have raised
From the deathless dust of the grave
Dust of gleaming wings borne on the wind, seed
In the womb of the wind, borne
In cloud and tempest over the world
On tide and current made and unmade,
I am what you will, what you have willed
Life after life, maggot and spider, seed and harvest,
chromosome, flame.
Seed – Kathleen Raine
From star to star, from sun and spring and leaf, And almost audible flowers whose sound is silence, And in the common meadows, springs the seed of life. Now the lilies open, and the rose Released by summer from the harmless graves That, centuries deep, are in the air we breathe, And in our earth, and in our daily bread. External and innate dimensions hold The living forms, but not the force of life; For that interior and holy tree That in the heart of hearts outlives the world Spreads earthly shade into eternity.
Peace of Mind – Kathleen Raine
If the pool were still The reflected world Of tottering houses, The falling cities, The quaking mountains Would cohere on the surface And stars invisible To the troubled mind Be seen in water Drawn from the soul's Bottomless well.
Night Thought – Kathleen Raine
My soul and I last night Looked down together. I said, 'Here we are, come To the worst. Look down That chasm where all has fallen, The rose-bush and the garden And the ancestral hills, Every remembered stone. Of that first house There is no trace, none. You'll never cross that burn, Again, nor the white strand Where lifted from the deep Shells lie upon the sand Or among sea-pinks blown, Never hear again those wild sea-voices call, Eider and gull rejoicing. Turn away, turn From the closed door of home, You live there no longer, Nor shall again. You have no place at all Anywhere on earth That is your own, and none Calls you back again.' Soul said, 'Before you were I spanned the abyss: Freedom it is, unbounded, Unbounded laughter, Come!'
Being a walking question mark 