Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Giving the Mind Its Due
Usually, I write poems about the heart and its connection with spirit. Sometimes, however, another kind of poem "pops out," something clearly more from the mind. Here is one I wrote recently. Writing like this helps me keep the balance between heart and head.
The poem was inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost, one of the great artistic masterpieces of Western culture, albeit Milton himself was an extreme patriarch. A blind poet, he dictated his verses to his daughters who obediently wrote them down.
Belial was one of the rebellious angels who fell from heaven as one of Satan's legions. Majestic Raphael was a six-winged seraph, one of God's most faithful servants. His "descent" occurred when God sent him to confront Adam and Even after their grievous "sin."
That Heav’nly Fragrance
It wasn’t enough
that the eyes were taken.
The world itself
now arose
as a billow of fog,
a place where
nothing found definition
but remained ever a haze
of uncertainty,
vague outlines,
undecipherable forms.
So he invented a universe
within,
a world of precise habitation
and history,
a narrative enacted
on a cosmic stage,
himself author, director,
lead and support
all in one.
There he could select
outcomes and consequences,
control both past and future
happenings,
become the god he railed against
as Belial
flown with insolence and wine,
or Raphael,
splendid Seraph winged,
who in radiant descent
through the vast Ethereal Skie
Sailes between worlds and worlds…
and when he shook his Plumes,
that Heav’nly fragrance filld
the circuit wide.
Dorothy Walters
November 21, 2006
The poem was inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost, one of the great artistic masterpieces of Western culture, albeit Milton himself was an extreme patriarch. A blind poet, he dictated his verses to his daughters who obediently wrote them down.
Belial was one of the rebellious angels who fell from heaven as one of Satan's legions. Majestic Raphael was a six-winged seraph, one of God's most faithful servants. His "descent" occurred when God sent him to confront Adam and Even after their grievous "sin."
That Heav’nly Fragrance
It wasn’t enough
that the eyes were taken.
The world itself
now arose
as a billow of fog,
a place where
nothing found definition
but remained ever a haze
of uncertainty,
vague outlines,
undecipherable forms.
So he invented a universe
within,
a world of precise habitation
and history,
a narrative enacted
on a cosmic stage,
himself author, director,
lead and support
all in one.
There he could select
outcomes and consequences,
control both past and future
happenings,
become the god he railed against
as Belial
flown with insolence and wine,
or Raphael,
splendid Seraph winged,
who in radiant descent
through the vast Ethereal Skie
Sailes between worlds and worlds…
and when he shook his Plumes,
that Heav’nly fragrance filld
the circuit wide.
Dorothy Walters
November 21, 2006
