Vestigia

Many years have come and gone since I was in grade 11 but -  I have a copy of our Literature class text, A Book of Good Poems and today as I finished a painting I thought I'd look for a poem to maybe go along with the painting.  

The painting is overly bright and when I asked Doug what he thought he simply frowned and didn't say anything!!  So it obviously didn't draw him in - oh well.... Yes, it is obviously more autumn-ish and completely out of place on what I hear is a wonderfully warm winter day - no, I have not ventured out today and have not since last Tuesday when I went to physio for my knee replacement exercise checkup.

While Wilfred Campbell's "Indian Summer" might go best visibly with the painting -
"Along the line of smoky hills
The crimson forest stands,
And all the day the blue-jay calls
Throughout the autumn lands..."

- I've decided to go with 

"Vestigia" by Bliss Carmen

I took a day to search for God,

And found Him not. But as I trod

By rocky ledge, through woods untamed,

Just where one scarlet lily flamed,

I saw His footprint in the sod.

Then suddenly, all unaware,


Far off in the deep shadows, where


A solitary hermit thrush

Sang through the holy twilight hush—

I heard His voice upon the air.

And even as I marvelled how


God gives us Heaven here and now,


In a stir of wind that hardly shook


The poplar leaves beside the brook—

His hand was light upon my brow.

At last with evening as I turned


Homeward, and thought what I had learned


And all that there was still to probe—


I caught the glory of His robe

Where the last fires of sunset burned.

Back to the world with quickening start


I looked and longed for any part


In making saving Beauty be . . .


And from that kindling ecstasy

I knew God dwelt within my heart.

Esther deWaal, Lost in Wonder.... "When we move with poetry and the imagination, when we deal with symbols and images, we become people who are happy with mystery and open to discover. To deepen the mystery, to embrace complexity is risky.  We need to have courage enough to be ready for an unveiling which can be a startling process.... The longer that we stay with an image and dialogue with it, the more will it yield up. 'A symbol should go on deepening' as Flannery O'Connor says.  We have to wait for the image to find us. Sometimes it may come unbidden, but often we must expect to stay with it, and to be ready to go deeper, layer upon layer - always waiting expectantly.  Images are best described - as footholds into a truth that cannot be expressed fully in words...sometimes they come suddenly and easily... and then, they depart suddenly just when we most wanted to hold on to them."

Well, I do like poems which take hold of my imagination and give me a reprieve from the everydayness of life.  I "sometimes" like it when a painting is more imaginative than real and perhaps because of the colours this painting is more imaginative... perhaps it can draw someone into an imaginary place of meaning and contentment before landing them on the dock to walk back into reality.