Poetic Being never appeared
To philosophic muses of century past—
Bertie Russell and Ayer and Moore—
And they were the poorer by far.
Politics, pundits and peers
With oratory dry have poured
Self and soul into image and byte
And yet powerless be.
Even some of those who claim
Prophecy and pastoral tool
Are purblind to Poetry’s power
To scintillate soul with glory divine.
Oh, to be a lover of Poesy’s appearing!
Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.
Has not this always been
The way?
From Sumerian threshold
Which Abram forsook
To Elizabethan chamber
Which Puritan hurt—
From Pharaonic glitterati
Seeking Moses’ demise
To denizens of Herod
Plotting Messiah’s death.
The way is so familiar,
Like skin on hand,
Its press as potent
As heady intoxicant.
But there is another Path
To longer, sweeter taste
Than worldly tongue
Hath savour known.
“Rise up, let us go.”
No metaphysical union here
Nor majestic ontology—
Only animal pairing
That come break of day parts,
Not to share a glance again.
No talk of Love, nor
Companionate meeting of flesh—
Only business
That ploughs the field
For lucre and gain.
Embodièd worship
And Glory gone—
The squalid alone is left,
Confusion, chaos, and coal
Without regal Fire.
Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.
We who live in a culture consumed by being and staying young need to pause and listen to the wisdom of poets like John Donne:
“No Spring, nor Summer beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one Autumnal face.”
[cited Jilly Cooper, The British in Love (Penguin, 1980), 158].
Ah, these shallows of the spirit,
When time tapers, grows thin—
Legion in this cracked life we lead.
But, oh by Spirit to probe Profundity
To tread Time’s thickness by sole
—Is not this why feet were made?
Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.
Honey couldn’t melt this tongue
Held fast by frost;
These dry lips, from the belly of hell,
Moaned my gaping stone to be moved;
Shrieking at Heaven’s roof
I yelped my disobedience loud:
“This stone is too heavy to bear.”
Then, at winter’s sweetness
My spirit was raised;
From beneath a forest-lawn
To a river, wounded with drenchèd hope,
Regal joy made me sense
The awe-full groanings of the deep:
Tides, high as the Temple.
Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.
Only the other day
I saw freedom’s ancient cross,
Shadowed in a sparrow’s wings;
Into the sun it flew,
Glistening white the deep of sky
For all the other birds to see.
Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.
An instant passes, and
He, pushing his pen
Is real now;
Now down, time is stopped.
Once, he was impossible
As a scribal life,
But the shining books
Are yearning for ink.
Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.
The Tree, denuded of foliage,
Yet stretching forth branches,
Strains Spring-like as it unites
Widest extremes
Of earth and sky.
The purity of fresh snow,
Finely textured and light,
Blankets Sky-like and deep
This ruddy earth
With its cloying clay.
Much more than annual respite
Then this Spring’s emergence
And re-shaping history’s time—
But Phoenix-like
From the funeral pyre.
Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.
It was the winter of despair—
The bleakness of March:
With
Its ashen piles of snow
And firmament of gray
That seemed to wrap forever.
Forever?
No, not so permanent,
As forty legionaries
With only second Adam’s
Coverlet of glory
To shield them knew.
The men of Legio XII
Were never so warm
As from that Fire with its hope
Of being recalled to life.
Yes, that recall shall come—
And so shall their Christ.
March 9, 2008.
Michael A.G. Haykin©2008.