Poetry: Re-Membering

by Wendell Berry in the introduction to his novel Remembering

". . . to him that is joined to all the living there is hope . . ." -
Ecc. 9:4

"Let the fragments of love be reassembled in you.
Only then will you have true courage." - Hayden Carruth

Heavenly Muse, Spirit who brooded on
The world and raised it shapely out of nothing,
Touch my lips with fire and burn away
All dross of speech, so that I keep in mind
The truth and end to which my words now move
In hope. Keep my mind within that Mind
Of which it is a part, whose wholeness is
The hope of sense in what I tell. And though
I go among the scatterings of that sense,
The members of its worldly body broken,
Rule my sight by vision of the parts
Rejoined. And in my exile's journey far
From home, be with me, so I may return.

I'm not allowed to start reading the story until my thesis is done--11 days!--but something moved me to open the cover this morning and the impulse proved fruitful. Quite the fitting invocation and benediction for the work of writing a theology paper and a great deal else in this season of my life.