Dating God

I’m no poet (and I definitely know it!). My relationship with poetry is generally fickle. Sometimes certain poems speak to me in ways that surprise me, most times I find myself simply confused and uncertain. There is, though, one poet that I continue to return to and enjoy reading. This should come as no surprise to you all, but this particular writer is Thomas Merton.

While he is certainly most famous for his spiritual prose, Merton wrote poetry throughout his entire life. A former graduate student in English, is shouldn’t be too shocking to realize that this form of creative expression was dear to the Trappist monk’s heart.

This poem was written in 1944 and can be found in the new publication of selected poems, In the Dark Before the Dawn (New Directions, 2005), edited by the Canadian Merton Scholar Lynn Szabo. While not explicitly an “Advent poem,” I found this reflection on a winter night thematically appropriate for this season of increasing darkness, anticipation and hope.

The Winter’s Night

When, in the dark, the frost cracks on the window
The children awaken, and whisper.
One says the moonlight grated like a skate
Across the freezing river.
Another hears the starlight breaking like a knifeblade
Upon the silent, steelbright pond.
They say the trees are stiller than the frozen water
From waiting for a shouting light, a heavenly message.

Yet it is far from Christmas, when a star
Sang in the pane, as brittle as their innocence!
For now the light of early Lent
Glitters upon the icy step –
“We have wept letters to our patron saints,
(The children say) yet slept before they ended.”

Oh, is there in this night no sound of strings, of singers?
None coming from the wedding, no, nor Bridegroom’s messenger?
(The sleepy virgins stir, and trim their lamps.)

The moonlight rings upon the ice as sudden as a footstep;
Starlight clinks upon the dooryard stone, too like a latch,
And the children are, again, awake,
And all call out in whispers to their guardian angels.

The photo, titled “Winter Night,” is by Ketil Monsen of Norway.
To view this photographer’s full portfolio, go to: Ketil Monsen

This entry was posted on December 4, 2010 at 10:06 am and is filed under Thomas Merton with tags advent prayer, thomas merton, winter night, winter poem. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.