The Dark Night of the Soul

I.

In a dark night,
With anxious love inflamed,
O, happy lot!
Forth unobserved I went,
My house being now at rest.


II.

In darkness and in safety,
By the secret ladder, disguised,
O, happy lot!
In darkness and concealment,
My house being now at rest.


III.

In that happy night,
In secret, seen of none,
Seeing nought myself,
Without other light or guide
Save that which in my heart was burning.


IV.

That light guided me
More surely than the noonday sun
To the place where He was waiting for me,
Whom I knew well,
And where none appeared.


V.

O, guiding night;
O, night more lovely than the dawn;
O, night that hast united
The lover with His beloved,
And changed her into her love.

VI.

On my flowery bosom,
Kept whole for Him alone,
There He reposed and slept;
And I cherished Him, and the waving
Of the cedars fanned Him.


VII.

As His hair floated in the breeze
That from the turret blew,
He struck me on the neck
With His gentle hand,
And all sensation left me.


VIII.

I continued in oblivion lost,
My head was resting on my love;
Lost to all things and myself,
And, amid the lilies forgotten,
Threw all my cares away.

-- St. John of the Cross (1541-1591), (birth name: Juan de Yepes y Álvarez), Spanish Carmelite monk, poet, and mystic, friend of St. Teresa of Avila, translated by David Lewis, 1908.

Scripture reference: John 1:5, 1st Sunday after Christmas B,

What you hold, may you always hold

What you hold, may you always hold.
What you do, may you do and never abandon.
But with swift pace, light step,
     unswerving feet,
     so that even your steps stir no dust,
go forward
    securely, joyfully, and swiftly,
on the path of prudent happiness,
    believing nothing
    agreeing with nothing
    which would dissuade you from this resolution
    or which would place a stumbling block for you on the way,
so that you may offer your vows to the Most High
in the pursuit of that perfection
to which the Spirit of the Lord has called you.

-- St. Clare of Assisi (1194-1253) Italian monastic, abbess, follower of St. Francis, and founder of the Order of San Domino (later the Order of Saint Clare)

The Soul's Expression

With stammering lips and insufficient sound.
I strive and struggle to deliver right

That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling, interwound,
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height,
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground!
The song of soul I struggle to outwear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
And utter all myself into the air:
But if I did it,-- as the thunder-roll
Braeks its own cloud,-- my flesh would perish there,
Before that dread apocalypse of soul.

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), Romantic-era British poet, author, and activist, spouse of Robert Browning

Sonnet

The late Gracie Allen was a very lucid comedienne,
Especially in the way that lucid means shining and bright.
What her husband George Burns called her illogical logic
Made a halo around our syntax and ourselves as we laughed.

George Burns most often was her artful inconspicuous straight man.
He could move people about stage, construct skits and scenes, write
And gather jokes. They were married as long as ordinary magic
Would allow, thirty-eight years, until Gracie Allen's death.

In her fifties Gracie Allen developed a heart condition. 
She would call George Burns when her heart felt funny and fluttered 
He'd give her a pill and they'd hold each other till the palpitation 
Stopped—just a few minutes, many times and pills. As magic fills 
Then fulfilled must leave a space, one day Gracie Allen's 
      heart fluttered 
And hurt and stopped. George Burns said unbelievingly to the doctor, 
     "But I still have some of the pills."

--Alice Notley (1945- ) from Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2005.

Coming to God: First Days

Lord, what shall I do that I
Can’t quiet myself?
Here is the bread, and
Here is the cup, and
I can’t quiet myself.  

To enter the language of transformation!
To learn the importance of stillness,
     With one’s hands folded!

When will my eyes of rejoicing turn peaceful?
When will my joyful feet grow still?
When will my heart stop its prancing
     As over the summer grass?

Lord, I would run for you, loving the miles for your sake.
I would climb the highest tree
To be that much closer.

Lord, I will learn also to kneel down
Into the world of the invisible,
     The inscrutable and the everlasting.
Then I will move no more than the leaves of a tree
     On a day of no wind,
Bathed in light,
Like the wanderer who has come home at last
And kneels in peace, done with all unnecessary things;
Every motion; even words.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, from Thirst: Poems, 2006