Readings and Thoughts on Poetry, Faith &amp; The Imagination. -------------------------------O Sapientia I cannot think unless I have been thought,Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.I cannot teach except as I am taught,Or break the bread except as I am broken.O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,O Light within the light by which I see,O Word beneath the words with which I speak,O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,O Memory of time, reminding me,My Ground of Being, always grounding me,My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me,Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,Come to me now, disguised as everything.- Malcolm Guite

As Though Some Heavy Stone Were Rolled Away

Readings and Thoughts on Poetry, Faith & The Imagination. 

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.

The Forge - Seamus Heaney