Poems by Themis

The Spirit's Claim

...Where the pathways meet, we are one,

And where the pathways are different.

I hold the paradox to my heart and wait.

Let the strangeness grow within me

to silence and reconciliation.

Let me accept this fulfilment that has come.

Upon the lonely roads, where separation made me sing,

a new young loneliness grows to silence,

to the prelude of this fulfilment...

Your limbs and life are everywhere, O Beautiful:

All things are words, words grown suddenly rich

in meaning — puns and quibbles and symbols, —

the rose, the thorns, the tree and hill and sky...

Lo! how the spirit dances upon sense:

The meanings throng and tumble over each other

with sorrow and laughter and great rejoicing,

folding our comedies, our clear religions,

close, close, plane over plane.

Innumerable glories filter down the soul

and become flesh, become colour and sound

and scent;

The patterns of Your myriad moods pass through

the light,

and shining whiteness breaks upon the beautiful

calm heights of mountains.

I gather the colours which Your eyes have acknowledged,

and every lovely sound,

for the glory of articulation is Your first secret.

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I ask for the touch of pure things, cool water on my eyes,

the wind in my hair,

and leaves and flowers against the cheek,

and the bodies of those I love...

The triumphant surge of spirit claims all things,

Radiance builds into flesh and waits,

Till the tomb-stone is rolled back in the light of dawn

of a world's understanding,

and God in swift new change, the alchemy of creation,

refashions earth.

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