Stories Too Fiery to Sing Too Watery to Whisper
The pleasure of feeling the poem discovering itself is always a particular joy in re…
We need to stand in saintly places
the way our body needs food to not topple over
We need to go there and find nearness there
even just a rude rock-strewn place where something
saintly took place or is taking place
tombs in giant sepulchers or a rude
rock-strewn place you can feel under your
feet or at the base of the heart the
non-physical saintliness of a real person in whom
God was by that person’s pleasing Him pleased
and stand there in its crystal waters rushing
past our ears and bathing our limbs the way
careful mothers of all creatures bathe their young
in the same way really we need to
find and stand in saintly places in this world
or stand with saintly ones and
stand with them for a time or for all time
and once found not ever leave their sainted precincts
in time or out of time
but stand with them
in their saintly places or those
who have gone before whose places are still
palpably alive the way even other live places
are not but these places are refuges and
refueling places not known anywhere
else on earth or with any other practitioners
and to stand in the bounty of a saintly place is
indescribable but evident if not then
then now in its great effect and the continuous affect
it has on us to
stand just once or have stood for even a small time
in space
in saintly places
8/10/2005 (from Stories Too Fiery to Sing Too Watery to Whisper)
Categories: Poems, Saints / Awliyya