I’ve been going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, feeling scattered in thought and attention. I think honestly, the crushing weight of all that the world is fighting, absorbing, and witnessing is the crux of it—I keep searching for some sort of wriggling answer that I just want to pin down, some key to understanding all of what has led to now.
Not long ago I was thinking of how we are the only people alive with the history of this world—no other generations have lived on earth with this much history behind it, with the number of lives that have come before us. You can say it for every generation, and yet there’s something in it that gave me the pause I needed to jolt my attention away from the constant distractions.
I was reminded of Simone Weil1, for some reason, and began to re-read some of her work. I needed something that offered attention towards a more eternal horizon, less full of this time at present.
Weil wrote that when working on a problem (she was specifically referencing geometry, but she meant it as a metaphor for any type of problem-solving) that it’s not about the pursuit of an answer, but a training in attention that matters. And that attention is really the essence of prayer, an opening towards grace—in whatever form that reaches you.
Weil’s attention was held by the poetry of George Herbert, which as one scholar writes, “gave her a key to the beyond,” in place of prayer. The poem 2is what grabbed her and never let go:
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guiltie of lust and sinne. But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack'd any thing. A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkinde, ungrateful? Ah my deare, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I? Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame? My deare, then I will serve. You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat.
Herbert3 wanted poetry to lead the reader to discover who they are for themselves, writing “but when one is asked a question, he must discover what he is.”
I am always struck by how poems tend to arrive when most needed—whether written or read. They suspend time between what has passed and what will come—it must be that they find the attention we give and respond with that kind of prayer, offering a small remove from now. They are at once a question, a problem, and sometimes, an answer.
I wrote the poem below in such a moment, when I was the mom of a three-year-old son—the attention given to him was also a type of prayer-poem. I share it this week because I realized that I needed poetry this week, to pull away from the prose of the world for a spell and be reminded of stiller moments. Of attention, of love, of care, of tending to one another.
Weil’s story is a fascinating one, and is considered a modern mystic/saint. Her wiki page gives a good overview of her life.
This is a beautiful discussion of the poem, if you’re in the mood to dive in:
Emily Dickinson also loved George Herbert, and copied one of his poems in her own hand—which her editors later mistook as her own and published in her last posthumous collection.
Funny you mention Simone Weil, as I just picked up a copy of "The Need for Roots" this past weekend, after years of having her in my orbit.
I love your beautiful poem too.