Two poems. The first, one of my own that gave the title to this blog, the second, a marvellous resonance of coincidence, as quoted by Richard Rohr in this wonderful talk and which he uses for the title and theme of his book Breathing Under Water: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8o6_IqKdy8
UNDERWATER
Heart is full of nothing
Need to start again
Bleed it full of feeling
And start to answer when
Head is full of trouble
Life is not alive, so
Devour a new intention
Learn to swim and dive
And seek out new confusion
Design, deserve, delight,
Desire, descend, re-surface;
Maybe, get it right...
And the second, which I won't try and interpret in any depth, but which I think Richard Rohr would say is about moving into the second half of life, by Sr Carol Bieleck RSCJ:
BREATHING UNDER WATER
I built my house by the sea.
Not on the sands, mind you;
not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock.
A strong house
by a strong sea.
And we got well acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier,
always, the sand between.
And then one day,
-and I still don’t know how it happened - the sea came.
Without warning.
Without welcome, even
Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine,
less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher, till it reached my door.
And I knew, then, there was neither flight, nor death, nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling, you stop being neighbors,
Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance neighbors,
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe underwater.
