Spiritus: A poem for Pentecost
Spiritus
De sensibili autem demonstratione spiritus sancti sive per columbae speciem sive per linguas igneas… (Augustine, De Trin. IV.xxi)
As dove to him you came;
To us you come as fire.
Soft, his soul, and smooth
Conformed from conception
To be your habitation.
We, though, are misshapen,
Angular, deformed, refractory.
Like agate eggs our hearts
Are stone
Lined with scattered, shattered spikes,
That surround a light-starved void.
We must be
Transformed
Burnt clean
Melted
And then remade.
You sear and cauterize us, Holy Dove.
You burn long-calcified layers of self;
Blazing, you fill the space within, until
Our molten souls are ready to be
Reformed
By some almighty potter
Possessed of flame-proof hands.
But when our liquid selves leak out
We gape at what humanity can be
And say that you have given to us gifts.
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