The Scholar at Cuddesdon

Poem by Jonathan Wooding

I take God out of the dictionary
and listen to G-d’s breathlessness.

There are claims that God’s vocation
is to tell of flittings.

God’ll do that for me, my flitting
to and fro – what, and show me up?

Or is flitting Coverdale’s* word
for today’s groaning – God counting

all my travails and troubles, storing
them in some sort of jar, you know –

Thou tellest my flittings, Psalm 56,
flittings a word that disappears

when English moves into new translation.
Here, I’ve no time for insecurity and doubt.

*Myles Coverdale, translator of the Psalms in 1535.

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Comments

I love this poem . I feel its an addition ,an expansion, of your earlier poem from last September , Psalm 119. A free association of mine to flittings was Wittgenstein’s picture of philosophy as a way of showing the fly the way out of a bottle .  Can philosophy do that?,can words? ,can a dictionary? or does it need G-d? ,G-d beyond ” God”? I was left asking myself .
Thank you again Jonathan for this subtly crafted , metaphysical, and, to me ,  very evocative piece .

By Neil M on 11th February 2021 - 14:29

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