Occasional Impressions - music, prose, poetry and prayer on the web
Occasional Impressions Poetry Collections
Prayer in the Garden
We meet in the garden.
No, we have gone there together.
Rather it is that we came here only to part -
to go our separate ways:
perhaps to sleep; perhaps to pray.
The garden.
Is this a place of sight? Or a place of scent?
The sight is muted - dimmed - for it is late.
Pale moonlight casts half-broken shadows on the grey ground
And fleeting clouds intrude their presence,
confusing, denying shape to the shapeless shadowland.
The scent, too, is thinned
for fragrance needs the heat of day
to free its sensuous atoms from the lode.
The dark, cool garden discloses only a hint
of its radiant glory.
And prayer or sleep?
The sleep is to be preferred.
Sleep asks no questions
save to bring its own agenda of dreams:
dreams to disturb - or to offer reverie
dreams to distract - and have no consequence.
‘The dream dies with the dawning day.’
The prayer is more difficult.
It expects encounter.
It hopes for encounter
and is disappointed if the encounter is not there:
the encounter to explain
to complain
to justify the self
to seek - no, to demand - the reassurance
which all does fail if no encounter is offered -
if the Other is not there.
Betrayal.
How prayer can be betrayal -
betrayal long before the kiss.
Betrayal by the Other,
the Other part of self.
Self-betrayal is the hardest part.
No, the reassurance is not there.
You must go this way alone
without support
without the confidence that all will be well.
For otherwise it cannot help:
it cannot count
nor bring relief.
It must seem pointless, futile, doomed to fail.
No One sees, or hears, or cares
for there is None to care.
Yes, choose the sleep - the easier way.
Now look - the others - they have chosen sleep.
(Or rather, sleep has chosen them.)
Good choice; wise choice.
But in frustration, tell them off.
Or is it jealousy?
‘Can you not wait and watch one hour?’
Betrayed by the Other self - betrayed by friends.
But what can you expect in the half-lighted
and half-scented garden -
the place of grays and shadows
while is there yet no hint of day.
No, try again.
Try again to pray.
Pray, damn it! Pray -
seek the encounter with the absent Other -
The Other who will not come;
The Other whose presence is absence.
Another effort to pray.
Come, answer me, affirm me, assure me
that this is your way!
But no - look, the others have chosen sleep again.
Wise choice - they choose with the
wisdom of innocence.
So try again to pray.
Pray one last time
- or is that, try one last time?
Perhaps this is the last chance -
for there will be no further opportunity
before death finally closes the door to prayer.
Strange thought that -
that this garden - without colour
and with only the half-scent of night
should be the last place of possible
encounter, dialogue and grace.
But there is no encounter; dialogue is denied; grace is absent.
What now?
Despair?
Or determination?
No answer is the answer.
No encounter is the flavour of encounter.
No grace is the substance of grace.
So there you have it.
No more to be done
No more to be prayed.
(And no more to be slept or dreamed.)
Light hints at the return of day.
The last day.
Come on, let’s get on with it.
The other betrayer is on his way.
Contact info@occasionalimpressions.co.uk
© Occasional Impressions 2010 (March)
