Stephen Mason at “Called to Be..” inspired by Judith Wright’s poem “Water”

Here first is Judith Wright’s poem “Water” from her 1966 book The Other Half (page 240 of Collected Poems, page 223 of the Second Edition of CP)

Water

Water in braids and tumbles, shells of spray,

heaves of clear glass and solemn greeneyed pools,

eel-coils and quick meanders, goes its way

fretting this savage basalt with its tools,

where from the hot rock-edge I drop my hands

and see their bones spread out like tugging weed,

each finger double-winged with ampersands

that stand above the current’s talking-speed.

Such sentences, such cadences of speech

the tonguing water stutters in its race

as may have set us talking each to each

before our language found its proper pace;

since we are channelled by its running stream.

A skin of water glitters on your eye,

and round your skull a halo of faint steam

breathes up to join the spindrift in the sky.

NOTE: Ampersand = &; spindrift = spray blown along the surface of the sea

HERE NOW IS STEPHEN MASON’S RESPONSE:

Rainforest

Epigraph from Judith Wright’s “Water”

“… Such sentences such cadences of speech

the tongueing water stutters in its race

as may have set us talking each to each…”

I walk with Gabriele a Quaker Elder

friend of mine who chats with me about

the silent light of prayer we know

the unseen light

the silent voice we’ve come to see

and hear the spirit that turns the stars

and spins the earth and fires the sun

and lights imaginging we make with voice

and vision in our minds we talk about and walk

around our histories of faith we share

with Geroge Fox and Richard Rohr

while tracking by the streams that flow

through Mt Tambourine

we talk about he way we think of things

while waliking through the forest by the sea

we cannot see the forest for the trees

for thoughts are streaming waterfalls

from rivers underground before

our words are thinking water flows

and we are dinking liquid

conversation through the leaves…

and we are climbing rocky steps of books

we’ve read descending lush ravines

of talks we’ve heard through all the singing

birds spilling urgent songs and lizards

turning running off like our talk goes on and on

into our tasty picnic feast overlooking forest

stretching out toward the sea we enter silent

meditation on reflections in the the light

flowing out of rivers underground through the trees

beside the streams of Mt. Tambourine

Stephen Mason Nov 2023 at “Called to be…”