January
31st 2015, tomorrow, marks the one hundredth anniversary of Thomas Merton’s birth. I have not read much of Merton, and his much
acclaimed autobiography The Seven Story Mountain has been on my to read list for a while. I was surprised to read in his Wikipedia
entry that he had published “more than 70 books.” Given he lived to only 53, that’s impressive. A Catholic convert, a mystic, a proponent for
interfaith discourse, an advocate for social justice, poet, writer, and of
course Trappist Monk, he led an interesting life to say the least. In surveying some of his poetry, I
particularly thought highly of this one.
Let this be in commemoration of tomorrow.
After
the Night Office – Gethsemani Abbey
By Thomas Merton
It is not yet the grey
and frosty time
When barns ride out of
the night like ships:
We do not see the
Brothers, bearing lanterns,
Sink in the quiet mist,
As various as the spirits
who, with lamps, are sent
To search our souls’
Jerusalems
Until our houses are at
rest
And minds enfold the
Word, our Guest.
Praises and canticles
anticipate
Each day the singing
bells that wake the sun,
But now our psalmody is
done,
Our hasting souls
outstrip the day:
Now, before dawn, they
have their noon.
The Truth that
transubstantiates the body’s night
Has made our minds His
temple-tent:
Open the secret eye of
faith
And drink these deeps of invisible
light.
The weak walls
Of the world fall
And heaven, in floods,
comes pouring in:
Sink from your shallows,
soul, into eternity,
And slake your wonder at
their deep lake spring.
We touch the rays we
cannot see,
We feel the light that
seems to sing.
Go back to bed, red sun,
you are too late,
And hide behind Mount
Olivet—
For like the flying moon,
held prisoner,
Within the branches of
the juniper,
So in the cages of
consciousness
The Dove of God is
prisoner yet:
Unruly sun, go back to
bed.
But now the lances of the
morning
Fire all their gold
against the steeple and the water-tower.
Returning to the windows
of our deep abode of peace,
Emerging at our conscious
doors
We find our souls all
soaked in grace, like Gideon’s fleece.
Without
too much analysis let me highlight that he captures that moment after evening
prayer, but it’s what the prayer has done that is the focus of the poem. It has opened his mind (“The Truth that transubstantiates
the body’s night/Has made our minds His temple-tent”) so that “The weak
walls/Of the world fall/And heaven, in floods, comes pouring in.” Every stanza has a reference to mind or
consciousness either to set up that flood from heaven or to describe the effect,
especially the “Dove of God” that becomes trapped in the conscious. That is a really engaging poem.
