I have just returned from a poetry
retreat day at Otley Hall with three things I didn't have before: a
much more intimate knowledge of Coleridge and The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner, a reading list that ranges from St John Chrysostom to G K
Chesterton, and a desire to mow a labyrinth into our back garden.
I have also returned with a poem, which
I wrote as a response to Malcolm Guite's unpacking of Coleridge's
poetry, and which I had the privilege of hearing Malcolm read aloud.
Having heard recordings of him reading so many of his own poems, this
was an unforgettable experience.
Here is the poem. I owe the
Schroedinger image to Keren Dibbens-Wyatt, who wrote on Holy Saturday
that Jesus was 'Schroedinger's saviour' in the tomb. The rest I owe
to Coleridge and Malcolm Guite!
On Reading Coleridge
A sudden glimpse of everything
connected
and I am outside, and invited in.
The circle of the God who loves the
world
and loves me, broken through my sin
and ready for renewal, as the shoot
breaks through the bulb, and earth
imagines spring.
Schroedinger's chrysalis hangs in the
balance -
inside, a caterpillar dreams a wing,
imagining those painted sails unfurled.
How can you read the whole world like a
poem
until you've read a poem like the
world?
