In Perspective

Two beautiful poems : they are by Anne Carson- a new find for me.

H/T to Tina Beattie for these and don't forget to visit her new website here 

Tina introduces the poems with these thoughts............

Today, Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Britain. For those who pray, let's pray that his visit is a time of grace and wisdom, and let's be thankful for both our freedoms and our faith. But let's not take it all too seriously. 
The Pope, like each and everyone of us, is a micrcosmic speck of dust in the infinite mystery of the cosmos. Like each and everyone of us, he has the curse and the blessing of being not just dust, but the stardust of consciousness. 
Like us, he wakes every day to a creation pulsating with wonder and terror, with his nose pressed up against the cold hard surface of his own mortality and the abyss beyond, wherein there may be nothingness or judgement, or an infinite 'yes' to our deepest desire - whether our desire is for God, or for there to be no God.

"My Religion"

My religion makes no sense

and does not help me

therefore I pursue it.

When we see

how simple it would have been

We will thrash ourselves.

I had a vision

of all the people in the world

who are searching for God

massed in a room

on one side

of a partition

that looks

from the other side

(God's side)

transparent

but we are blind.

Our gestures are blind.

Our blind gestures continue

for some time until finally

from somewhere

on the other side of the partition there we are

looking back at  them.

It is far too late.

We see how brokenly

how warily

how ill

our blind gestures

parodied

what God really wanted

(some simple thing).

The thought of it

(this simple thing)

is like a creature

let loose in a room

and battering

to get out.

It batters my soul

with its rifle butt.

"God's Justice"

In the beginning there were days set aside for various tasks.
On the day He was to create justice
God got involved in making a dragonfly

and lost track of time.
It was about two inches long
with turquoise dots all down its back like Lauren Bacall.

God watched it bend its tiny wire elbows

as it set about cleaning the transparent case of its head.

The eye globes mounted on the case

rotated this way and that

as it polished every angle.

Inside the case

which was glassy black like the windows of a downtown bank

God could see the machinery humming

and He watched the hum

travel all the way down to the turquoise dots to the end of the tail

and breathe off as light.

Its black wings vibrated in and out.