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vandiemenspeak
vandiemenspeak
Jun 25, 2017 ⭐ View statistics (Premium feature)

Beneath a leaded window

"Better to illuminate, than merely to shine" - Thomas Aquinas

The mind refracts in light a thousand fold
of shards that linger in the finite world
beyond our coloured, leaded sanctums hold.

Sometimes,the spectrum split is hard to bear,
for such a filament that's fine as mind,
if only this sousing light would bend,

to will, then wait for us soft by the door.
A glow of creamy luminescence poured,
into our formed and fractured glass windows,

that open slow Cartesian,inviting daylight in.

About This Poem

Last Few Words: Just a small piece, i'd recently gone through a book on philosophy including Aquinas. I still think, at the end of it all -we still don't have a clue. Reference in the poem, is the stick in the water analogy, i think it was Descartes - i could be wrong, maybe it was just my broken lens..? Don't need to respond in philosophical terms (unless you want to) - it was just more a feeling, like the feeling you get sitting beneath church windows, which i will still visit for beauty's sake. Slight update in phrasing...

Style/Type: Free verse

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Tasmania, AUS

Favorite Poets: Glen Richards, Thomas Hardy, Phillip Larkin, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Carol Ann Duffy , Ani DiFranco, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Elliot

More from this author

Comments

Candlewitch

Candlewitch

8 years ago

hello...

this is an interesting piece you have written. (I asked my husband to read it, too. he said, that to fully understand it, I would have to investigate Descartes philosophies. which I shall put on my reading list.) I like the imagery which feels comforting to me and invites me to read on.

your "last few words" give the impression that you have broken from organized religion. so have I, at an early age.

I enjoyed your poem.

always, Cat

vandiemenspeak

vandiemenspeak

8 years ago

You got me there at the end..

Ok Descartes was one of the continental rationalists - and here was the grandaddy of that partiular line of thought.."I think, thereofre I am" later Engels would write "Matter cannot be separated from thought" direct line can be drawn.. - material idealist really - but even though you can welcome that illumination, you can also appreciate the peaceful illumination of a stained glass window..more a fragment than a poem..

Thanks.

take care,

Chris.

Geezer

Geezer

8 years ago

Liking the...

philosophic bent, as you put it. I have to admit, the beauty of stained-glass windows always seems peaceful and calming. I found a couple of lines that gave me pause as I tried to figure what they meant, but that is what poetry is for, thinking about. I particularly found the line: "Sometimes, all spectrum lights are hard to bear" of interest and wondered if it didn't have a double meaning there?
Anyways, double meaning or not, a good line. ~ Gee.
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