{"id":59520,"date":"2018-06-07T16:19:19","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T16:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=59520"},"modified":"2018-06-07T20:06:48","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T20:06:48","slug":"seeking-the-beloved-for-jim-gant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=59520","title":{"rendered":"Seeking the Beloved, for Jim Gant"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — two great poems, my friend, and the impassioned voice of Sara Mingardo ]
\n.<\/p>\n

Rainer Maria Rilke<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

You who never arrived..<\/strong><\/p>\n

You who never arrived
\nin my arms, Beloved, who were lost
\nfrom the start,
\nI don’t even know what songs
\nwould please you. I have given up trying
\nto recognize you in the surging wave of
\nthe next moment. All the immense
\nimages in me — the far-off, deeply-felt
\nlandscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
\nunsuspected turns in the path,
\nand those powerful lands that were once
\npulsing with the life of the gods–
\nall rise within me to mean
\nyou, who forever elude me. <\/p>\n

You, Beloved, who are all
\nthe gardens I have ever gazed at,
\nlonging. An open window
\nin a country house– , and you almost
\nstepped out, pensive, to meet me.
\nStreets that I chanced upon,–
\nyou had just walked down them and vanished.
\nAnd sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
\nwere still dizzy with your presence and,
\nstartled, gave back my too-sudden image.
\nWho knows? Perhaps the same
\nbird echoed through both of us
\nyesterday, separate, in the evening…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

** <\/p>\n

Hide and go seek, or for the truly young at heart, peek-a-boo, is the earliest of games, and the most profound. We are seekers: there is something, some treasure to be found. <\/p>\n

Among the greatest of our comrades was Rabia of Basra<\/strong> who, sensing an unaccustomed absence of the divine beloved, wept all night long in prayer, WHere are You, Why have you left me? — only to be comforted in the morning by the renewal of the presence, which patiently asked, And Rabia, who do you suppose cried all night long, praying so urgently for my presence?<\/p>\n

Let us go seek, for the great game is upon us.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

David Jones:<\/strong><\/p>\n

If Rilke gave us the romantic beloved, Jones shows us the search for the beloved in the person of Christ, seeking his form without success in the structures of modernity..<\/p>\n

This poem is remarkable also for the two great wailing cries in Latin that give it its title and final words, giving poetry a passion more eaily found these days in the blues.. I know of no poem in the English language quite like it,.<\/p>\n

A, a, a, Domine Deus <\/strong><\/p>\n

I said, Ah! what shall I write?
\nI enquired up and down.
\n(He\u2019s tricked me before
\nwith his manifold lurking-places.)
\nI looked for His symbol at the door.
\nI have looked for a long while
\nat the textures and contours.
\nI have run a hand over the trivial intersections.
\nI have journeyed among the dead forms
\ncausation projects from pillar to pylon.
\nI have tired the eyes of the mind
\nregarding the colours and lights.
\nI have felt for His wounds
\nin nozzles and containers.
\nI have wondered for the automatic devices.
\nI have tested the inane patterns
\nwithout prejudice.
\nI have been on my guard
\nnot to condemn the unfamiliar.
\nFor it is easy to miss Him
\nat the turn of a civilisation.<\/p>\n

I have watched the wheels go round in case I
\nmight see the living creatures like the appearance
\nof lamps, in case I might see the Living God projected
\nfrom the Machine. I have said to the perfected steel,
\nbe my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I felt
\nsome beginnings of His creature, but A,a,a Domine Deus,
\nmy hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible
\ncrystal a stage-paste \u2026 Eia, Domine Deus<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

We are frtunate to have that same cry, Domine Deus<\/strong>, delivered with unmatched devotional intensity in the voice of Sara Mingardo<\/strong>, in Rinaldo Alessandrini<\/strong>‘s version of Vivaldi<\/strong>‘s Gloria<\/strong>, RV589:<\/p>\n