Gathering God
The poets have scattered you.
A storm ripped through the stammering.
I want to gather you up again
in a vessel that makes you glad.
I wander in the thousand winds
that you are churning,
and bring back everything I find.
The blind man needed you as a cup.
The servant concealed you.
The beggar held you out as I passed.
You see, I am one who likes to look for things.
Rilke, The Book of Hours I, 55
~ * ~ * ~
From the new Byzantine Tarot this hauntingly, beautiful Eight of Cups is the card I thought of as Rilke's poem of the day unfolded across the page. The beggar held you out as I passed. I spend a few moments lost in the beauty of this phrase...the proferred cup that is the Goddess, the asking, the longing to be filled, the vessel held in the hand, container, temenos...all of these sing Her name. Perhaps the figure in the card knows this, imbued as she is with the halo of a luminous, lunar glow. Perhaps her journey is one of gnosis, of immanence. She embodies the last line so seamlessly...You see, I am one who likes to look for things...
