THAT

Wittgenstein at Hutteldorf
Daniel Sundahl
The monks are awake in the middle of the night,
Worshipping their anguished God.
Morning will come and once again
They will warm their bellies and wonder
About that feeling growing upward from the groin.
What makes it possible for their worship
To represent their faith in another world?
The icons and statues could be manipulated
To depict in different ways what might have taken place.
God, I believe, must somehow show us His sense,
Be something other than an extremely general fact of nature,
Or spirit substantiated into matter.
Father Superior calls it my “logical compulsion.”
Father tells me to let each day
Lead me to the next, and to the next,
From the coolness of morning to the coolness of evening.
If I were more casual
And if the clamor of my senses
Did not so much disturb my thoughts,
I could join these everlastings.
I remember a poem written for a blonde girl;
The brightly joined rhymes were stolen,
Wings rhyming with sings.
Lord it is time now;
Someone is being buried
Beside the monastery’s garden wall.
Something dwells in the thick darkness,
Finer than what gives light its shape and substance.
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