Listening To Sacred Hymns By Gurdjieff Poem by Daniel Brick
Listening To Sacred Hymns By Gurdjieff
Out there in space where stars
and planets position themselves
according to primeval patterns and
determine the seasons on earth, it is
already Autumn 2017. But here,
in the places we walk, in the air
we breathe, in the thoughts tumbling
in our minds to their own ends, it is
still Summer. Can our simple desires
exert a force that will make Summer's
blessings last even longer? Can my thoughts
race through space and freeze the behavior
of celestial objects? Relieve them
of their role in determining human fate?
The pianist is playing a piece called
HYMN FOR A GREAT TEMPLE, and it summons me
to either prayer or despair. Perhaps
I should restrain my thoughts, and
position myself between the two extremes.
First, I will humbly pray, second roar
in defiance of fixed, unbending things,
then repeat both and keep repeating them
until a current of energy takes over,
turning their opposition into a single
force. Or will this music of Gurdjieff
quiet my thinking, and make me absorb
what is given, and not to wrest control
from the ancient custodians of reality?
And do not the simple pleasures of Summer
and the complex joys of Autumn mock
the heaviness of my thoughts? I will
postpone until Winter any resolution.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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5/12/2024 8:24:48 PM # 1.0.0.1119
hey, daniel! i've been familiar with the name gurdjieff for decades, but i can't remember if i read anything by him or just about him by a guy named ouspensky (or something like that) . but no matter, as the reference to him seems not essential to this poem. last night i woke around midnight to a prolonged extravaganza of thunder—bowling ball thunder, loud strikes on tympani thunder, whip crack thunder. and i mention it because he we are officially in fall, but summer is the time for thunderstorms here. scripture of course has stories of God affecting natural phenomena through the intercessions of men. rare of course. do they still happen today? can they? i certainly don't know. but what i am convinced of, philosophically speaking, is that because God is the creator, who precedes the cosmos, who precedes time and space, we do not live in a closed system. God is apart from or transcends it—which follows that we can too. so ours is not the position or despair of the nihilist, nor the reaction of the existentialist to nihilism. our is the open sky. our bodies just the tents or temporary dwellings fit for time and space, but not for the life that goes on and on. whew! a layered answer for a layered poem. joy be yours. glen