bearings
after Litany by Billy Collins

You bore yourself in us
and we, we quite forget ourselves

we claim to see just where You are not
you wait always to be found

You have been in so many places
          dawns, dew, bread, wine, even pine-scented air
            (none exclusively)
we lose track of you just as we grasp for You

we may be ever so devout
      yet barren, arid, deserted
You know this is not as you have left us

Sometimes we remember this with you
with - us - in - each - breath - uncovered
              where you always are
                                      as we bear ourselves to You

A. H / K. H-H (30th September 2019 & May 2020)

Originally written at a workshop, we looked at Litany and discussed Crickillon whom he takes his first two lines from and who inspired him to react to in his discussion of a beloved. I can’t find that poem in English. Perhaps like Collins I am also disagreeing with what I’ve read, or saying something else more than disagreeing, and wonder how to put my acknowledgement. I wrote this at a time I was reading a lot of Rumi and for me the beloved here has more resonance (as Crickillon’s lines also made me wonder).

I posted it as xxvi (’19) but have since made some revisions to layout and gave it this title and acknowledgement. In updating I seem to have deleted the original post from last October somehow, technology. I’ve included it in a pamphlet I’ve drafted that I’ve called ‘readings’, which I am deciding what to do with.