Late night ramblings

At any given time, there is a poem, piece of music, work of art, or sometimes something else altogether, that seems miraculous to me, something that seems to connect with the divine that underlies all things.

More and more frequently, it is a song, usually something from a clearly lowbrow tradition. Here is one.

If I Should Fall From Grace With God
By Shane MacGowan (1987)

If I should fall from grace with god
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me

Let me go boys
Let me go boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

This land was always ours
Was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others

Let them go boys
Let them go boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
No corpse can lie upon me

It's coming up three boys
Keeps coming up three boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

If I should fall from grace with god
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
And still the angels won't receive me

Let me go boys
Let me go boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

In one of my favorite poems, T.S. Eliot saw it a bit differently: "What is this face, less clear and clearer/The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger--/Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye/Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet/Under sleep, where all the waters meet." But the place is the same.

This weekend, John and I went to a wonderful place called Grayville Falls, only ten or so minutes from our house. We saw nature's geometry:

and this amazing bird:


...and many other amazing things. Whatever our view of spirit, or deity, or even cosmic law is, the one thing that is clear to me is that the moment when I go down to become part of my beloved Mother Earth, whether the rivers meet or run dry, is the moment I live for.

Namaste,
May