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Ecstasy and Me
I’ve not, I fear, the spiritual thrust
To quite propel myself to mystic heights;
To taste the inconceivable delights
That saints have savored, hallowed and nonplussed
By drawing near to something so august
The very soul with tender awe ignites
And somewhere in the human heart invites
The lover and beloved to deeper trust.
Although I’ve moments simple yet refined:
When line-by-line I trace a psalm’s veneer
And just when all’s exactly as it seems,
The radiator yawns its whispered whine.
It starts to spit and suddenly I hear
The Spirit in the rattling of the steam.
.
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Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.
This starts off as a conventional (and even rather predictable) sonnet of mystic longing. But it ends on an unexpected and jarring note, where the longed-for “unio mystica” is suddenly brought back to earth in the hissing and spitting of a steam radiator.
Because of its strangeness, one wonders if this sudden shock is deliberately arranged by the poet, and if so, to what end? To me it suggests not a traditional mysticism of contemplation and meditation on divine matters, but a somewhat more modern mysticism that insists on finding God through earthly and quotidian experience. If this is the poetic intention, then the final three lines can be seen as a dismissal (or perhaps a rebuke) of the lines that have gone before. The steam radiator becomes a kind of substitute angel, bringing to the speaker a correction of his path.
All of us, at times, want to let off steam, to vent, as it were. The spiritual impulse is a mighty thing, which we may not lay aside without severe consequences. The church I attended in my youth was heated by steam radiators, to which I usually paid more attention than I paid to the liturgy recited in front of me. In the end, I think these seemingly disparate impulses dovetail more seamlessly than anyone expects or suspects. The universe in a grain of sand. Macrocosm and microcosm are intimately connected.
Jeffrey, what would you think of replacing “to deeper trust” in line eight with “to deeper tryst”?
I think (if I rightly understand the essence of your poem) that I identify with the writer in the way he expresses the feeling of being an outsider to the exclusive group that might be called “mystics”; for he needs connection to this world, and doesn’t fail to find spiritual inspiration in it. His mind tends more to the precept upon precept, “line-by-line” way of understanding things, for the most part, yet still is propelled to “inconceivable delights” even without what might be thought of by some as a higher, more mystical experience. I hope I haven’t misinterpreted the meaning of your well-formed and thoughtful sonnet.
Thank you, everyone, for your kind and incisive responses to the poem. It’s based on my own history of prayer as well as of its current condition, and informed largely by something I read in Thomas Merton’s last book, “The Inner Experience”, his final writings on contemplative prayer. The passage:
“Do not make the mistake of aspiring to the spectacular “experiences” that you read about in the lives of great mystics. Do what you do quietly and without fuss. Seek solitude as much as you can; dwell in the silence of your own soul and rest there in the simple and simplifying light which God is infusing into you.”
The book was written at a time when Merton was looking at Eastern monastic traditions and their interface with their Christian counterparts, and he noted that Buddhist contemplation, instead of the “spectacular experiences” of Western mystics such as Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, etc., was marked by very contained, very centered sense of the “Is-ness” of things.
The is-ness is my moment with the radiator, which I westernized by calling it the Holy Spirit (which is, of course, is-ness itself). Hope this helps. Thanks again. Jeffrey
I really enjoyed this. The background you provided on Merton was also very helpful. We should all keep in mind that spectacular experiences sound great but they aren’t the target we should be aiming at.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this finely crafted and most unusual poem together with the enlightening comments beneath. I can relate to such distractions when contemplating the Divine and I’m particularly drawn to C.B.’s observations. This page is a treat to read.
Jeffrey, I too very much enjoyed your striking sonnet. In that strict and expressive form you communicate an important truth, which has been so interestingly expanded on in your own further remarks and the comments of others. I’m intrigued by “When line-by-line I trace a psalm’s veneer” and wonder if you’re thinking of the ‘grain’ or ‘pattern’ in the form of the psalm, or perhaps in its thought progression?
Hello Bruce: Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to this (busy-busy…). Re: your comment about tracing a psalm’s “veneer”, I was indeed thinking of its grain or pattern, or, as I’ve more and more come to think of language, its texture. This has also become more and more my experience of poetry, that of other poets as well as of my own: that the experience, while triggered by careful word choice, an arrangement of tonalities, and manipulation of rhythm, is actually an experience of a texture created by the language, a fabric of meaning that transcends even the most clever arrangement of its elements. The psalms, as spiritual poetry, are clear examples of this: as beautiful as they are as texts, they’re always pointing toward something else–the grain/pattern/texture of The Divine. Thanks so much for your comment–and for prompting me to clarify my own thinking about this. Jeffrey
Jeffrey, Thank you very much for your response and clarification. What a lovely and thought-provoking way of looking at poetry! And I’m sure what you say is true. Bruce