“orient and immortal”

~ Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditation, R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Summer-Autumn, vol. 3, p. 278

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

If “Basho’s life was one long childhood”, then

Traherne’s was one long mystic vision sent

Through prose and poetry.  Among the men

Of letters, those of esoteric bent

(Like Swedenborg and Francis of Heart’s Truth

Ignored by Rome and Christianity)

Are yet distilled in innocence of youth

But sneered away by our insanity,

Dismissed as childish inanity by

The priests who prey on girls and altar boys,

True holiness ignored by minds of sly

And Jesuitic lust requiring toys.

  The naked angels by Christ’s throne disport

    Themselves in love in Heaven’s crystal court.

Swedenborg says of angels that some shine with flame

and some glow with light, yet

“The angels of the inmost heaven are not clothed.”

©  Phillip Whidden