Monday, 20 July 2015

Pearl of Great Price....



     When I was very young I was always writing ‘books.’ The fact that they never exceeded three or four pages, or got past the first chapter never deterred me. I didn’t give up beginning, only finishing: for a message was in me, only I didn’t know what it was. (Or, truly, it was more like I was the message and didn’t know who I was; and that thought was scary: it seemed very vain to me. And I knew I didn’t know anything and was pretty dumb in this world.) But sometimes flashes of it, whatever ‘it’ was would shoot all through me. Always it evaded me: for it wasn’t knowledge which could fit in your head. And it wasn’t anything you could put your finger on, and say, that’s it! ...if you did, it changed. It was something that came despite you: being as it wasn’t understandable it wasn’t of this world, it was from God who is too big to fit in your brain, and too small for you to find him.


The Pearl

When I am old I will write a pearl.
The pearl will be 25,000 miles wide,
Because it will circle the world
In one second.
It will be the smallest thing
Which can do that – 
Small as a pea under 20 mattresses,
That is why it will be a pearl.
Then the world will know what it has
Forgotten, 
And I will be gone.




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