“THERE LIVES THE DEAREST FRESHNESS DEEP DOWN THINGS.”
—Gerard Manley HopkinsDearest?
Anymore, such language
runs the risk
of being called extreme,
grandiose, too certain of itself,
bold beyond the bounds of belief,
quaint even—maybe, in some circles, reckless. Any
freshness
there might have been
has long since turned stale.
Doesn't the hunger still remain, though,
the ache, the reaching up
out of ourselves,
the palm at the end of the mind? Isn't there some deeper
deep
than what our words
can touch,
some farther far?
Where is lightheartedness?
Where joy, conviction, purpose?
Where plenitude of spirit, leaping about? Let's get
down
to the bedrock
to see if one exists,
to say a final yes or no.
In the light of last lights,
in this bent and broken world,
can there be wings brooding over us or the teaching of all
things
honest and just, lovely
and pure? Is uncertainty
our only certainty? Suppose questions
are only stall tactics
delaying an answer. What can that
mean for us, charged as we are to seek what everything means?