Author: Chris Goan

Today we welcome some words from our friend Tim Watson, sometimes known as the Beat Liturgist. The image that we have paired this poem with is from artist and print maker Raine Clarke, whose work is so filled with love and wonder.

Rob found this outpouring of a poem in a previous Proost publication – not currently in print – and thought it was high time to bring it out again, It Is a long piece, so let the words wash over you… and don’t be afraid to linger on those that carry the most meaning.

Incarnate

In the moments that pass

it’s easy to forget that each and every second that slips into history

found its trajectory in the beginning,

formed and foreseen on a grand scale,

such complexity is beyond the imaginings of everyday moments,

so far beyond comprehension and more immaculately formed than

history could ever reason,

stars scratching pockets of light into night’s grey shadow,

fresh rains filled with static scent,

bird song heard at every moment

and from every destination more music spills out of creation,

life blood from open wounds,

in such moments eternity calls out in perpetual clang and clamour,

life upon life upon life and there is no letting go,

too far beyond imagination,

too heady to comprehend,

and through these moments each hour meets with love

and hopes dashed,

grief and birth,

death’s song stalks the same hospital wards as birth’s angelic cry,

this story erupts into the ether,

punctuating the mundane with the extremes of every form,

and into this day

screams beckon forth

bloodied life,

formed in eternity,

ageless truth enacted,

personified with purpose,

to this diet of life and death the son comes,

fully formed of human flesh,

to be cursed and to be beckoned into life’s every complexity,

this life born of the same blood and filth of life

into the hovel of the homeless

speaks without words and without actions,

very presence of the presence in the present happenings of that

time,

immanence and transcendence tested to breaking,

beyond quick words and carefully formed phrase,

the creator

born,

created,

bearing hope and hurt and nursing at the breast,

limitless potential

formed of fragile clay

born of pain,

born into pain,

born of dust

and destined never to return to dust,

in the everyday hours of memories forgotten to history,

this form will find resolve in a different destiny,

light overcoming dark,

forgiveness framing fear,

solemn is humanity’s cry,

pitiful and plaintive,

burdened and beaten,

world wearied and worried

by rumours spoken on TV screens,

swiped from left to right on tablet touch screens,

telling tales of worry and truth’s terror,

this is the moment and this shall be the sign,

into this broken truth,

this brutal reality,

ageless,

less than static yet unchanging,

into this

a birth beckons forth a new dawning

and a new opportunity,

a new understanding and a glimmer of hope,

the baby born to tension and threat,

born to bring release,

freedom and sight,

born to bring the disinherited home

and they are home,

in his arms,

engulfed by his perpetual embrace,

for the son born as baby lives beyond limits

and dies beyond imagination,

flesh and bone,

words and spit,

nails and loss,

rust and cost,

to this future he submits himself,

born in a stable,

laid in a trough,

born with blood and gritted groans,

clenched teeth and no home

but in a mother’s young arms and a father’s fervent gaze,

every breath-filled moment,

building on the last,

the kingdom comes,

built on rooted rocks and whispered dreams,

cradled in a manger,

the cornerstone soon to be discarded,

eternity’s song,

intimate and infinite,

nothing more and nothing less.

Tim Watson Fear and Dust, A Hymnal for the Wild Vol 1 Proost 2015