an art for lent

You cannot utter something,
Speak or draw it,
Unless somewhere in your being
You have given your consent;
Allowed this now experience to enter
And come up through the doorway of your soul
Into the world of light.

But do not get me wrong
I don’t say that your conscious mind must know it
But somewhere in the musical menagerie of your soul
This tune has wound its way among the trees
And wishes to be welcomed to the band.

And so you speak, you sing, you draw, you sculpt
And into consciousness the wood comes singing,

But the tune is wild
What then becomes your work?

To tame the wood?
Flush out the flurry of the wild terrors?

To train the emerging creatures as they come into the light
Or let them dance and teach you what they know?

How wise can the wild things be?

Or yet to work oblivious of the tearings,
Deaf to the taunting,
Proud in the face of strangeness and disgust?
I think not.

Let them all come in!

Whoever they are.

The light is fit for battle
And is known by its power to love
To see though pain
Receiving it deep into itself
Until the wood and all its creatures
Come to meet the Spring.



Happy Lent!

Sarah de Nordwall Mardi Gras 2011