PRESENT  ____  ABSENT ____

PLEASE  CHECK  ONE

Poem for Today - Saturday - September 27, 2014

FLICKERING MIND

Lord, not you,

it is I who am absent.
At first

belief was a joy I kept in secret,

stealing alone

into sacred places;

a quick glance, and away – and back,

circling.

I have long since uttered your name

but now

I elude your presence.

I stop to think about you, and my mind

at once

like a minnow darts away,

darts

into the shadows, into gleams that fret

unceasing over

the river's purling and passing.

Not for one second

will my self hold still, but wanders

anywhere,

everywhere it can turn. Not you,

it is I am absent.

You are the stream, the fish, the light,

the pulsing shadow,

you the unchanging presence, in whom all

moves and changes.

How can I focus my flickering,  perceive

at the fountain's heart

the sapphire I know is there?

© Denise Levertov, pages 122-123

in Upholding Mystery,

An Anthology of Contemporary

Christian Poetry, Edited by

David Impastato,

Oxford University Press,

New York, Oxford, 1997