Georgie Blaeser rscj | Dorothea Hewlett rscj

NONE SO BLIND?

Do I not close my eyes, and feel them glaze
because I will them to, and sense the thick
oblivion sludge my mind, for fear I stumble
on burning bushes, taken unawares
by Presence signalled in the wilderness,
and lose, not shoes, but heart?

And all the time a secret knowing probes
and will not let me be,
but burrows, busy, through the opiate layers
of self-inflicted mindlessness,
surfacing sometimes, when worm-castings curl
in quivering question-marks, not to be cast off
by the unquesting eye.

O Wisdom, Key, and all-perceptive Lord,
save me from slumber that is not your gift;
prod me to consciousness, and make me know
the keen imperative of your dark will
urging me onward, though resistance seek
to snuggle back in numbness, shutting out
unquiet dreams, uneasy images.
Rouse me! Cry "Up! Awake!
Your nest's on fire, but the flames want you!
Welcome their love, be seared, for in that Bush I burn
yet unconsumed, live on, to kindle you."

TRAHE NOS POST TE

Love, draw me after you
as needles draw their thread.
You are the Needle, for you have an Eye
tenderly fixed on me, while your point is sharp.
That, too, has tender uses, for you are
also the Surgeon, stitching up in love
the weeping wounds that I must will to heal.

O my Beloved, do not lose the thread!
(Your Mother never did.)
Often, I know too well, it can elude
even that single, all-percipient Eye,
saying: I will not! I'll have none
of either Eye or Point.
I'll not submit
to minor pricks that heal the deeper harm;
I'd rather stay
festering and sore, within that hidden place
where (so I fondly think) that Eye cannot intrude,
nor pierce the secrecy to which I cling
hiding from all - and self - the ancient wound
that serves the dark so well.

Yet even there
my own most hooded eye yearns up
towards the light, to that great Eye
through which alone I see,
consenting dimly, that my life's grey thread
be drawn again through those all-seeing depths
and my own substance used, to suture me.

O Surgeon, Needle, and most potent Love,
when this your suture proves recalcitrant
then take
and shake
and quite re-make
your camel

in a more co-operative mould.