Off the Shelf: Light upon Light

A last minute change in meeting place last week, had me walking past and into an ecumenical bookstore I would not otherwise have entered.  While looking for something else, I picked up a collection of readings from old and new authors entitled, Light upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, compiled by Sarah Arthur and found the following poem.  Reading it required a trip to the wiki and return trip back to the poem to appreciate once again the mystery of inspiration, connection and staying power.   The book's title is from T.S Eliot's, "A Song for Simeon":
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision
Light upon light, mounting the saint's stair.

Staying Power

BY JEANNE MURRAY WALKER

In appreciation of Maxim Gorky at the International Convention of Atheists, 1929

Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts

outside and question the metal sky,

longing to have the fight settled, thinking

I can’t go on like this, and finally I say

all right, it is improbable, all right, there

is no God. And then as if I’m focusing

a magnifying glass on dry leaves, God blazes up.

It’s the attention, maybe, to what isn’t there

that makes the emptiness flare like a forest fire

until I have to spend the afternoon dragging

the hose to put the smoldering thing out.

Even on an ordinary day when a friend calls,

tells me they’ve found melanoma,

complains that the hospital is cold, I say God.

God, I say as my heart turns inside out.

Pick up any language by the scruff of its neck,

wipe its face, set it down on the lawn,

and I bet it will toddle right into the godfire

again, which—though they say it doesn’t

exist—can send you straight to the burn unit.

Oh, we have only so many words to think with.

Say God’s not fire, say anything, say God’s

a phone, maybe. You know you didn’t order a phone,

but there it is. It rings. You don’t know who it could be.

You don’t want to talk, so you pull out

the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer

till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbery

metal bits. It rings again. You pick it up

and a voice you love whispers hello.