Meditations in Fast Times: 26. We only have words

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                26.

We only have words,
we only have words
to convey meanings
that so often only mask,
in the naming and speaking,
rather than illuminate;
words are fallible tools
that can only begin
to make the song
that is the hum and flow of reality.

We only have words,
we only have the words
with which to move mountains;
words are the only tools we carry with us,
and are sometimes only able
to interrupt and stain
the purity of awesome silence.

And this is how the question arose
about the abyss of unincorporated now.

‘The possible waiting to happen’
might be more accurate,
but the simple statement
is too small to contain
the math and science,
the magic of attraction,
the incomprehensible will
of music to form in the
concert hall of being.

Krishna tried to explain it
using Arjuna’s clumsy tools:
there is utter freedom, but not from decision;
reality is a chemical reaction
resulting from a creative attraction between
the divine and any other,
but only the other is
intoxicated with
universal compassion.

Right action is not ordered by any mandate,
nor a completely designed moment,
but an internal, intuitive idea,
that is willed and nurtured
by a commingling within possibility.

Said another way,
fun and games,
trial and error,
discovery and loss,
experience of life,
death and resurrection
can only occur
when the ardent heart
wills an authentic choice,
intuitively meeting Divine energy
in the sacred wood.

Using our fallible words,
the burning bush says,
“I’m ready to play when you are!”

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen