God in the Slaney (Slaney River, Ireland)
Some Sundays I go looking for God
on the new quays in old Wexford.
I always have Marguerite in mind.
Look at the Seine, she said;
it rises and takes its travels
through field, town, forest,
and finally reaches Paris
on its way to the sea.
All the time it is called the Seine.
That is its name.
Then the miracle happens:
the Seine reaches the sea
and the Seine loses its own name.
It becomes nameless, as it mingles
water with water in the vast moving sea.
And no one can tell
where the river ends and the sea begins.
And so it is with me, she mused.
I have my own name,
my journey through life,
my travels,
and then, in my seeking,
like the river,
I enter the vast moving sea of God
and no one can tell
where I end and God begins.
There I am, God and I, my nameless self lost
in the vast sea of God’s presence.
And who can tell, then,
where God ends and I begin?
And so on some Sundays,
I look at the Slaney, following its own course
from Lugnaquilla to the sea,
Through Wicklow hills and Carlow towns
and Wexford farms,
past Enniscorthy Castle and Cathedrals
and so on to Wexford,
where its waters mingle with the sea
and then it is Slaney no more.
And there, standing on the quay,
I try to see myself, as Marguerite did,
lost and unnamed and mingled in God,
freely swimming in a sea of divinity,
not knowing nor needing to know
where humanity ends and God begins
where I end and God begins.
Sometimes, then, I turn town-ward
with my back to the Slaney-sea
and gaze the length of the quays,
from Crescent Pool, past mussel boats,
to the graceful low-slung bridge.
and there, right in the middle of the quays
try to imagine a woman being burned to death
on the Wexford quays,
just as Marguerite was
right in the middle of the Place de Greve
in her beloved Paris,
on the first day of June in the year thirteen-ten.
How to imagine such a horror.
How to imagine the fear that one lone woman
could evoke in the fierce, fiery, fear-filled church.
Was it because she spoke of swimming in divinity?
Was it because her chosen name for God was Lady Love?
Was it because, as a woman,
she dared to teach about her Woman-God of Love?
How could they have been so terrified
of this one woman, Marguerite,
whose calm acceptance of her horrific death
silenced the on-lookers into awed reverence?
That day, the Seine provided no answers,
and today, turning again toward the sea-bound Slaney,
I seek, not answers, but some small share of her God-lost self,
some sense of her all-embracing briny divinity,
some feeling that here,
in Wexford between Slaney and sea
I will learn to keep looking
and not miss the great moment of mingling.
(Marguerite Porete)
Poem Prayer Interpretation by Mary T. Malone
"Andante" from The Trout Quintet by Schubert, Marlboro Festival,
Rudolf Serkin, Artistic Director
"Song of the Seashore" James Galway, Flute, with the Tokyo String Quartet
