Discover more from Poetry Unbound
Dear friends,
Most years, I take the work of a poet and read through everything they published. It took me two years to read through Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters; a year to read through what Lorna Goodison had (up until then) published; and a few months during the early stages of the pandemic to read W.B. Yeats’ work.
Last year, instead of a poet, I took the sermons of Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), that German priest credited with being a mystic. He wrote philosophical works, too, but I found those Latin works, even in good translation, impenetrable. (He says things like And twenty secondly … words that should never be written.)
His sermons, though, were written in German, and are delicious. He takes a text from scripture and then free associates with it: incorporating memory, meditations on time, experiences of prayer, images he’s remembered from the day before. It’s bonkers. And beautiful. And spacious. And it speaks of a mind utterly freed by deep meditation.
One of his sermons begins with, “Here, in time… .”
I think that Meister Eckhart was a theoretical physicist. He understood that we are in time: calendars and days and nights and seasons and years and dramas and demands. Yes, of course. But he also saw that the inner life could, sometimes, provide an experience where time seems to step away from us. And in what might only last for a brief second, we are wrapped into a generosity where time, and its associated difficulties, gives way to something else.
I’ve been thinking about this because the two poems we had on Poetry Unbound this week are meditations on time. In “Ode to my Homegirls,” Safia Elhillo takes a long sweep over years of friendships that have sustained. Distance and months and years and changes are all brought into glorious lines and transitions that describe lives supported by friendships that sustain. José Olivarez’s poem “No Time to Wait,” however, describes urgencies felt — and met — by an immigrant family new to a parish in Chicago. Time as a broad sweep. Time as an immediate need. Yes, and yes.
Today I’ll meet an old friend for a coffee. We have news to share, so time will be broad. I’m just back in Ireland for a brief week, so I need to pack and prepare: time is also tight. I’m trying to make time for a yoga practice, too. For me, yoga is an experience where time and the body are in a different conversation.
I always make the mistake of thinking that there’ll be a time when I’ll have time to have generous time for thinking about time. That never arrives. There are stresses and pains and demands and loves and deadlines and warmth and waning and works and worries and unknowns. In the company of the poems from Poetry Unbound this week, I’m trying to simply notice what time is doing in me throughout the day: demanding, consoling, bullying, cajoling, nurturing, deceiving, delivering. By noticing it, I’m trying to discover tiny experiences where I can take a small step away from time, even for a breath, so that I can see it before stepping back into it.
I’m curious what your relationship with time is — and how you try to find your self in that relationship.
See you in the comments, friends,
Pádraig
P.S. Thank you to everyone who came out to events in Sydney, Brisbane, Queenscliff, and Melbourne while I was in Australia. What a delight to meet so many of you. Thank you.
Poetry in the World
Live Reading at Booksmith | San Francisco, CA
Tomorrow’s reading (May 29) has just sold out. If you secured a ticket, I look forward to meeting you there.
Returning and Becoming Conference | Asheville, NC
In mid June, I’ll be in North Carolina for a retreat at Kanuga (near Asheville). June 13 (morning and evening) and June 14 (morning). Hosted at an Episcopal Retreat Centre, this conference is open to all. My sessions will examine poetry, language, challenge, and change. Details and registration here.
Subscribe to Poetry Unbound
Open your world with poetry
Time has occupied so much of my thoughts lately. At 71, my entire being is fully aware, charged really, with the reality of being in the 'sacred final chapter' of life. It's humbling because the physical body reminds me daily, in aches and pains and, of course, the damn bathroom mirror, that time has shortened. Yet, there's so much life yet offers me! It's energizing and I'm engaged, enthused and determined to finish with gratitude, love and adventure.
Thinking of the phrase “just in time.” As in: I stopped just in time, I looked up just in time, I picked up the phone just in time. “Just in time” to: Avoid an accident; see a hummingbird at the feeder; to be there when a friend called. Not always a race with time, but a meshing of two toothed gears, suddenly engaging in the present moment.