Fame & Glory

Two Poems

Fra Angelico, detail from Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven, 1423

Homage to Long Since

Anaximander
bold pre-Socratic sailor
set the earth afloat
without water or boat
unsupported by pillars
cables or girdles
or the broad backs of turtles
*
My end is my beginning
and my beginning my end
peek ahead, deja vu
the tenor holds true
sang Guillaume Machaut
*
In the economy of rocks
old Scotty Hutton found
no vestige of beginning
no prospect of an end
*
Darwin was afraid his wife
might read his book and take her life
thus he made his apology
only half-heartedly
publishing tardily
*
Unintended or not
Fred Nietzsche thought
the world is recurrence
so if life had a purpose 
‘twould have come to the surface
 long since
 *
Four billion years and mounting
the evidence of counting
rare isotopes of lead
which by the by is killin’
our brain cells by the million
says Claire Cameron Patterson
kyrie eleison

Robert Dawson

A Saint Is

A saint is not so much a man 
Who realizes that he possesses virtues and sanctity 
As one who is overwhelmed by the sanctity of God. 
God is holiness. And therefore things are holy 
In proportion as they share what He is. 
All creatures are holy insofar as they share in His being, 
But men are called to be holy in a far superior way – 
By somehow sharing His transcendence 
And rising above the level of everything 
That is not God. 

Thomas Merton¹

1. From a passage in The Sign of Jonas (Hollis & Carter, 1953).