Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Tuesday, December 6
Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Tuesday, December 6
Day 9 of our 28-day Advent journey of mini-dispatches to give you pause and light.
"And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so
"One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.
"Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,
"Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.
*
"And since the whole thing’s imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time
"From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth
"Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love’s deep river,
‘To labour and not to seek reward,’ he prays,
"A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird
And on the riverbank forgotten the river’s name."
—Seamus Heaney, “St. Kevin and the Blackbird”
"That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake."
—Matthew 13:1 (NIV)