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      LIFE IS SIMPLER

      TOWARD EVENING

      BY

      RALPH WRIGHT O.S.B.

      Copyright 2011 Father Ralph Wright, OSB,

      All rights reserved.

      Published in eBook format by Monograph Publishing

      ISBN-13: 978-0-9840-1172-8

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

      If you are interested in having your book designed, published or converted to eBook format please contact:

      Monograph Publishing, LLC

      1 Putt Lane

      Eureka, Missouri 63025

       [email protected]

      Cover By William E. Mathis

      © 2011 William E. Mathis, All Rights Reserved

      PROLOGUE

      "It is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind" - so read the opening lines of the 'Advertisement' or Prologue to the Lyrical Ballads of Coleridge and Wordsworth published in 1798. After describing the poems that the book contains as 'experimental' Wordsworth, writing anonymously, goes on to say: "It is desirable that readers should not suffer the solitary word 'Poetry,' a word of very disputed meaning, to stand in the way of their gratification; but that while they are perusing this book, they should ask themselves if it contains a natural delineation of human passions, human characters, and human incidents; and if the answer be favorable to the author's wishes, that they should consent to be pleased in spite of that most dreadful enemy of our pleasures, our own pre-established codes of decision."

      These poems, too, are offered for the pleasure of the reader whoever he or she may be. They are the product of the past 15 or 20 years of my life as a monk. It is considered more hazardous these days to put one's 'vision' into poetry: people immediately feel uneasy and talk of propaganda. But perhaps it is when we cease to try to share our deepest thoughts, feelings and beliefs - about God and love and sin and silence and violence and hatred and union and distance and time and eternity - that our poetry ceases to please or to inspire. I would like my poetry to be read and loved not only by poets but also by the non-poet clientele of our world. Men and women of every walk of life and every interest. From those who program computers or punch cash registers to those vice-presidents who make multi-million dollar deals and survey the world through the dark one-way windows of tall buildings. For we all have to cope on an almost daily basis with belief, unbelief, love, loyalty, betrayal, union, violence, pain, ecstasy, joy, depression, sickness, anger and death.

      The poems that follow are attempts to capture moments from these common experiences and to hold them up boldly and without shame for others to share. The Christian sees the dark side - sin, tragedy, separation, death. But he also sees the awesome beauty of all

      PEOPLE WHISPER GOD TO ME

      People whisper God to me

      far more than mountains

      for landscape beauty bores —

      however roaring or majestic

      is the pageant music

      played behind

      their massive faces

      sunsets have no sympathy

      and — for all its background

      awe — inspiring paintwash —

      granite cannot smile.

      WOMAN

      within her

      and of her being

      comes one to be

      who will not cease

      she speaks each day

      God's Word made men

      uttered again, again

      and again

      into our silence

      hers is a dignity

      that none may measure

      hers a patience

      refined by fire

      hers a majesty

      unperceived

      in the painful tedium

      of giving birth

      the mystery

      of her being

      echoes the mystery

      of God creating

      and out of darkness

      Light

      SWALLOW

      With a lightning dive and a

      swoop

      sweeping long and low

      over rolling grass, hillside

      and sudden pools

      skimming the ground or the water and swinging

      with boomerang motion

      back and high in the air

      handsome as Hector and sleek

      as some Black Beauty

      groomed stud stallion

      — only for speed —

      you knive your way

      through empty air

      with scimitar sureness

      and finite ease

      leaving a wake

      of high peep notes

      and with the passing

      pen of your passage

      writing beauty

      alive in the sky

      I AM A SHELL

      I am a shell

      listen to me

      for the roar and silence

      of the eternal sea.

      A MEDITATION ON THE NEED FOR DARKNESS

      somewhere a star was growing slowly old

      in the uninfinite a light was dying

      exchanging heat for cold and day for night

      achieving a new darkness into which

      sperm could be uttered to create a god

      fire condensed to lava and became

      through far millennia a cool dark earth

      water and rock and air and even ice

      were slowly there

      leave room for the darkness, darling, leave me room

      carry me, mother, carry me in your womb

      towards eternity patiently into being

      think what millennia did first gestate

      with none, thank God, save God, to count

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