I am enjoying the conversation immensely, friends.
Here is sonnet #2 from Seven Sonnets through the Dark:







Nocte intempesta
(at dead of night)
“…therefore my spirit fails; my heart is numb within me…” Psalm 143

Had I never known You, this would be despair;
This blinded discalced march a beat apart
Through hollow ashen wind and foreign air,
Bleaching bones, dry-curing brain and heart.
Over fields of shattered glass I tread, I bleed,
Balancing burdens full with shallow breath;
Sorting shards to the small dry cellar of my need
Where I bear the silent shrouding of this death.
But in the hope that I once knew, I persevere
Through dark obliterating all sense of place,
Though barren roots of dread, distrust inhere
Because I can no longer see Your Face.
I trace my map in sand falteringly,
Gathering courage to walk out on the sea.

I am looking forward to this discussion, co-conspirators.
(Sigmund Freud said that anyone who believes that there will be a reward in the afterlife for things done or endured in this life is psychotic. So I want to address you all as "my dear fellow psychotics." But that might confuse newcomers, don't you think?)

With that introduction, which might have something to do with this and might not (!), here is the first of the "Seven Sonnets through the Dark" -

De nocte
(of night)
“…he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead, long forgotten…”
Psalm 143

There’s a dark that illumines the darkness we are
In the subterranean chambers beyond sin,
Where subtler poisons deface, disbar,
And unravel every hard-won discipline.
Below repentance’s smoothly finished frame
Lurk nature’s will and inward contradictions
Though we’ve immolated sense in puring flame
And submitted to our cleansing benedictions.
More contrariety with God have we
Than sin which once we chose but now reject;
He is more than sinlessness and we
Cannot sublimate through force or intellect.
We must let go of us, arms cruciform,
To expose our hearts to Fire that transforms.

I am feeling that fullness I often experience before I begin to write, and I am writing a great deal with paper and pen, but nothing ready for this forum yet. I am eager for your conversation again, and am checking in with Gabrielle, who is doing a wonderful synopsis of the Teresian Mansions. Tempted here to share my Seven Sonnets through the Dark, as she is discussing the Dark Night over there. For now, I ask your prayers as I finish some projects and complete my Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Meanwhile, this:

The test of fidelity
(every love affair has them, of course)
is not in the fire,
nor in the peace;
not in the most visible things,
nor the most obvious.
The test of fidelity
(and faithfulness is the first principle, of course)
is in the tilt of the heart’s valves,
the delicate pathways of the brain,
what glances eyes are allowed to steal,
the secret strengths and hidden weakness.
The test of fidelity
(without questions, we fail before we begin, of course)
is in what we do in secret,
what we keep from human eyes.
Yes, this is where the Beloved’s light penetrates –
this is where we must be free.
The test is in the darkness –
it is temptation overcome
that betrothes us at last.

Thou
and I
and all else falls away.
The sun
a spark
and the darkness, brightest day.

I just love this picture of my twins with their cousin in the middle of the sandwich.

Every time I look at it, I think that this is what Heaven is like - so much happiness we're bursting with it.

At last we will know the freedom of heart, the freedom of soul, that will allow us to run lightly as true children, unencumbered by fear or paralyzing questions or hyper-analysis.

Just joy.