Mommy Brain

I finished this amazing collection last night. Madeleine L’Engle was truly a remarkable woman, and her poetry is beautiful and haunting and joyous and funny and all the things you could possibly want poetry to be.

The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle is a collection of poems that date from 1969 to 1998. I knew that Ms. L’Engle was a Christian from reading A Circle of Quiet, but I had never read her poetry before. Her most frequent topic in her poetry, especially in the later poems, is the working and walking out of her faith.

There are poems of praise that would fit well in any liturgical service. There are poems of questioning and doubt and frustration with God. There are poems written from the point of view of biblical characters such as Noah’s wife, Japheth’s daughter, Simeon, Martha, David, and many others. I have so many I want to share with you, and I’m sure you’ll see many of her poems making an appearance here through the next few years. Here are just a couple to give you a taste of what I’m raving about:

Word

I, who live by words, am wordless when
I try my words in prayer. All language turns
To silence. Prayer will take my words and then
Reveal their emptiness. The stilled voice learns
To hold its peace, to listen with the heart
To silence that is joy, is adoration.
The self is shattered, all words torn apart
In this strange patterned time of contemplation
That, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me,
And then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended.
I leave, returned to language, for I see
Through words, even when all words are ended.

I, who live by words, am wordless when
I turn me to the Word to pray. Amen.

Sonnet 1

Your place is empty, empty in the night
When I reach out with hand or foot to touch
Your living flesh, the warmth that offers such
An affirmation, oh, it is not right
The bed is empty, made for two, not one.
The reflex does not die, to touch, to reach,
To find. I think it will never be done,
And I am glad of that. It seems that each
Of us find our own answers in this grief.
I know you have been here. You have been here.
The empty place is full of deep relief
Because it still is yours and still is dear.
But oh! That my dear love were in my bed
And my life flesh to your live flesh still wed.

5 out of 5 stars