da Scriffles

It isn't the thing you do, dear,
It is the thing you leave undone
That gives you a bit of a heartache
At the setting of the sun.

The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you did not send, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.

The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother's or sister's way,
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle, winning tone
Which you had not time nor thought for
With troubles enough of your own.

Those little acts of kindness
So easily out of mind,
Those chances to be angels
They come in the night and silence,
Each sad, reproachful wraith,
When hope is faint and flagging,
And a chill has fallen on faith.

For life is too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great,
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late;
And it isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone
Which gives you a bit of a heartache
At the setting of the sun.
XoxoxoxoxoxoxO

Margaret E Sangster

In a war against dust and clutter I've chucked stuff out - including books.
Who needs books! Who reads books! Who reads poetry?
But that stupid high school poetry book - I stuck back on the shelf.
Not just one copy, no, I have TWO!
Must've rescued a copy that someone else in the family was going to chuck.

I am the family repository of photographs, memorabilia etc
They tell me to throw it out - I keep it.
Why must I be so sentimental and emotional?
I have no choice in this matter but my clean-up was partly a rebellion against myself.

Your point of view changes as you move through life.
At 17, or 24, or 30, lots of things are just things.
And they ARE just things.
Words are just things.

Something turned up on Twitter made me think of a poem I adored in high school.
It spoke of a beauty free of space and time.
This quote inspired a decade of my working life - I inscribed it on diaries, address books, and a painting.
"Beauty free of space and time" - this was my life's goal when I started out.
Funny that!

I called a painting I did once Beauty free of Space and Time.
I don't think anyone else saw in it what I saw.
I kept it.
Once I could gaze endless at it.
I saw this company of dazzling Russian dancers.
Painting a small photograph out of the programme let me hang onto that moment of joy.
But today it's just a ghostly thing.
I'd forgotten what I once passionately believed in.
What is beauty free of space and time?

Perceptions ... sights, sounds, touch, smell ...
lead to
Reactions, expressions, words, silences ...
....
...
.
English poet Clive Sansom talks about a grand design in this poem, The Spirit of the Cathedral.
Now, I've never believed that our lives are laid out by a grand design.
Perhaps I've even tried to prove this poem wrong.
By steadfastly pursuing something that truly is beyond me I've proved him right.
There is a grand design, an immaculate pattern, the repository of perfection.
Everything in its perfect place.

"The artist gropes to find. But being
Artist he must grope, must mould
Within his mouldering hands a symbol
Of that perfection - loveliness dissolving
Even as it leaves his touch, but telling
For a space of time, of beauty free
Of space and time. And beholders know
The shadow's substance, the divine matrix
From which this image came."

Even though I eventually forgot these words, the idea had taken root in my very being.
Maybe it was always there.
If you want to read the whole poem, here it is:

The Spirit of the Cathedral
by Clive Sansom b 1912 England.

Whatever is beautiful, whatever rouses
The heart from its complacent sleep, says
"Man, you are more than man, more
Than a repository of birth and death" - such beauty,
Before the creative chisel of the mind
Shaped it in stone or word, music
Or colour, lay in the Imagination's eye,
The retina of God.

They know, who see it, that a world exists
Behind the world, where the thought, the Idea
Of beauty, independent of its earthly form,
Lives in perfection - an eternal realm
Which holds the immaculate pattern fast
The artist gropes to find. But being
Artist he must grope, must mould
Within his mouldering hands a symbol
Of that perfection - loveliness dissolving
Even as it leaves his touch, but telling
For a space of time, of beauty free
Of space and time. And beholders know
The shadow's substance, the divine matrix
From which this image came.

So with the Cathedral. Before it laid
Its pressure on the clay, enclosed the moving
Air with arches, or threw its spire
Upon the mercy of the wind - already in that other
Kingdom stood the great archetype,
Supreme and perfect, waiting only
The man to see, the will to fashion
Its mortal replica.

*** *** ***

Now what amazes me most about this is that it informs all the work I've done for the past five years writing a children's book.
Almost 10,000 words about a grand design.
Never would even have found this connection unless Gary Tan hadn't blogged about building a cathedral.
And certainly wouldn't have connected the dots if I'd thrown this book out because I can't find it on the internet.

*** *** ***

Sorry for the literals.

Didn't read it back.

Too busy with lining it up etc...

Took the eye off the editing ball.

With clouds above, 

the rain falls.

Above the clouds,

the sun rises.

People scurry past torn hoarding,

so not glimpsing earth, grass and sky.

Silent, padlocked, empty city block,

forgotten like the first colonial sentinels,

standing small by the expressway, 

dwarfed by the 21st century,

standing small on rock solid foundations that built this city.