the deepening ground

“I don’t think poetry lives on the flat page…any more than music lives in the notation. I think a poem has to be breathed into the air – it has to kind of shimmer into being as sound exchanged in the one atmosphere between people.”

Malcolm Guite, from “A Spell in the Studio with Phil Keaggy,” 9/10/22

Last week I stole a few minutes from my lunch to listen to Malcolm Guite. I want to say, to sit across from him and smoke a pipe while he elucidated on the wonders of Lewis, for that is the atmosphere his YouTube posts create. But, alas, I remained in my classroom, lights off, sharing my mild repast via my laptop. All that to say, today’s post is inspired by two separate posts on Guite’s YouTube channel: one with Phil Keaggy from September 10, 2022, and the other from November 23, 2024, referencing St. Cecilia and C. S. Lewis, the common denominator being Lewis in each post.

Having just finished teaching Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in my junior level British Literature courses, I can’t believe that I missed the anniversary of the death of both Huxley and Lewis (and JFK, for that matter) on November 22nd. Besides inspiring me to record my poems and to write a villanelle touching on the concept of noise versus silence and song (something Guite references in relation to The Screwtape Letters), these posts exposed me to the poetic side of Lewis. I have loved his Narnia series since I was a child, along with so many other prose works such as The Space Trilogy and The Great Divorce, but I had never read any of his poetry until I came upon this beautiful sonnet that says so much about the quality of true love. As Lewis says, there’s a whole lot of “flashy rhetoric about [love],” but the quality of true love is “more precious than all other gains.” True love IS poetry, “shimmer[ing] into being” as we exchange life together, just as the following poem suggests.

In remembering Lewis, may we remember this priceless gift, especially as we head into Thanksgiving and gather with those we hold most dear.

As the Ruin Falls by C. S. Lewis

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love -- a scholar's parrot may talk Greek --
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.