Musings… Inspired by pub conversation.

ma già volgeva il mio disio e ’l velle sì come rota ch’igualmente è mossa, l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

I have no cats

only a dead dog

buried in the garden

where the pond once stood.

There too is my erstwhile god

vainly appeased with candles

and with pitiful supplication.

Dead.

I see seven streetlight lamp halos,

from car headlights too;

Where is the Holy in this world?

Will God forgive us?

Forgive us for what we’ve done.

Lacerated with barbed wire,

drunken drain cleaner,

spat in the face of oil barons,

followed Christ in his abhorrence;

of wealth, of hoarding,

of greed, of possession.

Seventy times seven,

have we passed the limit?

Have we the courage,

to take up the cross;

to drink the cup, drink

to the dregs!

In Gethsemane,

will we sleep? The saviour

alone, in his humanity

when he needed a friend.

Abandoned. Not alone,

a woman, a gardener,

in the morning, sunflowers

turned to the sun;

seven feet tall—proud.

A pride acceptable,

will we too be proud

in our calling, to stand

to create in his creation.

Though all be marred,

will we see the beauty,

will we strive to make it?

All is ours; we are gods,

as he declared, we assent.

We are free, so by truth.

We rest in the plenitude,

content in our want, fading

into the beatitude, our wills

turned uniformly,

by that love which moves

the sun and the other stars!¹

Dante Alighieri (Par. 33.143-45)

‘but my desire and will were moved already —
like a wheel revolving uniformly — by
the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.’

1.