A Poetic Response to G M Hopkins

I imagined his religious marrow groaning

in some dark blood-chemical rejection.

Deep seated malaise, flesh verses heaven.

 

The broken rhythms

with a line or phrase

impatient to land,

But consistently checked;

As the more-clarity being strived for

is more close-imminent;

But God is depthless.

 

His poetry fizzes and shimmers,

Flooding, cascading then focusing-down on

the minutiae;

Ants pant/ furious leg muscles,

Pounding out breathless miles,

Under burden and a higher goal,

Soul-connected to commune-good.

 

The click-clack, shield against shield

of Locusts,

Swarm flying, flying in wait

for the Prophet’s rage

to direct asunder.

 

The flight, the soaring and whistling dive,

The burgeoning nest

chick-full of urgent life.

 

The onomatopoeic twitching and gurgling

of rock-pool fissures,

Heat driven from a molten heart

up-steaming the vapoured water.

 

Stoney-Stone images grey,

Cold-Stoney and lifeless,

Gathering on dank-earth-plains.

 

And Love

for this Poet

Is Nature Personified,

Incarnated with His-life,

Myriad/Myriad

and Myriad.

 

And when alone/enthralled,

Collar-neck-suited, bespectacled-eyes-shining;

As a new faceted-diamond

side of God’s grandeur

heaves into view.

 

He’s one of the 24,

Being continually-confronted

and love-light-blasted;

And can do nothing else,

But throw down his Crown

and whimper ‘Hallelujah’

to the One who made it All.