I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mary Camille Thomas’s reflection and poem “All Things Sing You.”
In my blog The Kingdom of Enough I ponder this question: In a crazy, consumer culture that is busy bombarding us with demands and desires, how do we touch the peace that reigns in the cave of every heart?Although I’m a churchgoer, I am just as likely to find the answer to that question in nature, including my own backyard — like Dorothy Frances Gurney I often feel that “one is nearer God’s Heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.” The title for this poem comes from Rilke’s Book of Hours, 1,45, and I highly recommend the translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.
All Things Sing You
after Rainer Maria Rilke
Human ears hear
the chittering of squirrels
and the here I am coos
of the mated mourning doves,
the breeze playing
in redwood boughs,
bamboo fronds,
and ponderous birds of paradise,
each tree as distinct
in the fingers of the wind
as instruments in an orchestra.
But could I ever learn to hear
the spit spat spurt
of asparagus cells eating sunlight
or slow my vision to catch
those green spears soaring to the sky?
Ordain my senses
that I may eavesdrop
on the love song
of the vine to the rosebuds
and the petals’ pleasure-soaked sighs
as they unfurl their delicate curves.
May I too sing You
ten thousand ways
in the ebb and flow
of silence.
At home on the California coast, Mary Camille Thomas is interested in the relationship between nature and spirituality and uses writing as a tool to navigate our busy, device-dominated, consumer culture. She explores possibilities in her blog The Kingdom of Enough and is currently at work on a novel called What Lies Buried.
