The Other Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

Passed Villa Theresa monastery by, on Pedder Road,
After spending an hour and half delightfully
In British Council Library reading Gerard Manley Hopkins
Wreck is on my mind; and the Spiritual Exercises
Of Saint Ignatius –

How far do I understand the life of a Jesuit priest?
How far my negative capability takes me into another,
In another man’s paradigm? See me in others, in
Everything, and everything in me, says Krishna
In the Bhagavad Gita –

I try, I reach into some lines and lives
But not fully: for, my imagination takes over
And real me finds doors of darkness and towers
Shut, yielding no light, Oh hell! Can’t identify with
Or understand ‘the Other’.