Bending East (and North)
"Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward", by John Donne
...
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover , and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west
This day, when my soul's form bends towards the east.
(He's talking about the fact that he should be looking east towards Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified on this day, but pleasure or business are forcing him westwards - made me think how my soul is also bending east - and north - to where my daughter had to have a scan today to check Baby is OK - 37 weeks now - but here I am in Portugal instead...
Then he talks about the unimaginable paradoxes of the incarnation and the endless mystery of God dying...)
Could I behold those hands which span the poles,
And turn all spheres at once, pierc'd with those holes?
Reminds me of lines in a more modern hymn by Graham Kendrick:
Hands that flung stars into space
To cruel nails surrendered...
Walked into the church in Mora's main square - already 43 years old when Donne wrote his poem - and up behind the altar to get this - thought they'd have a crucified Christ somewhere...guessing the M above is for Mora, and the JNRJ is Portuguese version of INRI.
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