#religiouspoetry — Public Fediverse posts

This was recommended to me by my undergrad adviser (may not be the right term, I mean the prof that was grading me on my honors thesis in undergrad) a decade ago.

I ended up not writing on it. I honestly struggled to understand it.

It's still a little hard to understand, but I think I get it a lot more now in this stage of life.

"Carrion Comfort" is a phrase that's been buzzing around my mind lately, for reasons I can't quite get into, but let's say I was thinking about how we as humans reach for lesser comforts when we're hurting.

(I'm doing well, btw, don't worry ;)

Carrion Comfort
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

   Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

#CarrionComfort #GerardManleyHopkins #Poetry #ChristianPoetry #ReligiousPoetry