Complex, Yet Simple: How Poets Reflect the Divine Poet
Reflections from Under the Blue-Collar
I began writing this as a reflection on what masteries, skills, and tools make for a good poet. Yet, as is my wont, I found my meditations fleetly running to higher pinnacles. After all, the primary role of a poet is to turn our gaze to that which is most beautiful and true. And what is more beautiful, more true, than the very creator of Truth and Beauty? (This reflection will also apply to artists of any kind.)
Now, there have been many lovely and true words spoken of how the poet, as a storyteller and myth-maker, reflects the glory of his creator back to Him. I will not walk this well-trod path. Instead, I consider how the poet, in the very way he writes, using the tools of simplicity and complexity held in perfect tension, reflects the many faceted, shimmering light of the Creator of the stars.
As I said above, among the poets foremost roles is the calling to reflect Beauty and Truth (for here-on-out I will use one or the other word as interchangeable synonyms for a single joint-concept) in their writing. This is actually a deceptively difficult task, for Beauty is deeply complex, and one can never truly plumb its depths. The observant mind can gaze at any single wonder of creation his entire life and still be delighted to find something new with every glance. He can swim in the depths of those waters for aeons, and never exhaust their wonders. Yet for all its many layers, Beauty is also simple, such that children, upon seeing it for the first time, can appreciate that same beauty for its own sake without need to examine its every detail. Indeed they cannot, because they do not know how - but it doesn’t matter. Their experience of the beauty is no less poignant for the lack of understanding.
In order to mirror this divine tension, the poet must, therefore, strive to layer a multitude of symbolism and Truth, wrapped in simplicity of frame. A good poem must both be complex in its depth, and even in its composition, but must feel simple in Is rhythm and form. A truly transcendent poem must be rich enough that the observant may, in many readings, endlessly glory in discovering new delights within its lines - whether of Truth, or the minuet details of its prosody. At the same time, it must also be composed in such a way that one who is uninitiated in the craft can set to reading it, having it roll effortlessly off the tongue, that they too may glory in its simplicity, unhindered by the need to think about how it ought to be read, because it comes as natural as does drinking in the deepening hues of a sunset.
Few poets can boast such skill - I certainly fall far short in my own writing - and fewer still can say to have achieved such with even a fraction of their writing, let alone all of their work. Yet that is to be expected - so lofty is the goal, so divine the aim. But God - God is the ultimate artist, the True Poet. Simply look to the Scriptures, and how he orchestrated them over millennia to be such a work! One can spend an entire lifetime in just one section of one of its books and never exhaust its depths! But while we poets write about the beauty in His wonders, he wrote about the Beauty of Himself. He is the endless depths from which all Beauty springs! In Him, of wonders, of many facet, layers, and depths of Beauty and Truth, there is no end!
It astounds me that anyone would still think that Eternity will be boring. Boring! If that’s what you think, your view of God is far too small for me. In that heavenly kingdom, when God himself is our light, there will be Beauty never ending - and it will be our delight to keep discovering new delights in Him! I cannot wait to have the pleasure of writing poetry in the New Creation, as I gaze ever deeper, move ever further up, and further in, to the glory of the Creator of the universe!
Praise be to Christ Jesus, our Lord, to whom the Church is wed, and in whom we will enter into our Master’s house, and and joy, enjoying Beauty and pleasure forevermore! Amen!
Thanks for reading
I thoroughly enjoyed this reflection. What a high calling :)
The beauty of Christianity, I think, is the most compelling thing in its favor. Of course, Christianity is also true, but the apologists, I think, tend to forget that it is also beautiful. And sometimes that is even more compelling than the fact that it is true.
Thinking of God as the source of all beauty, all truth, and all goodness makes sense of every experience of joy and ecstasy we experience in this life. We know there is deep meaning in these experiences. We find them in stories and songs, in marriage, in dandelions, and sunsets. We feel it with every fiber of our being.
And all of it—absolutely all of it—is intended to point us to what we were intended to do for all eternity, from the beginning of time: glory in the infinite beauty of God, FOREVER.
This reflection by you also makes me think of how C. S. Lewis answered one skeptic who didn't think Heaven could be all that great since no one's going to have sex there (LOL). Good ol' Jack simply pointed out that the marital act (and the sacrament of marriage) are only a reflection of the glory and beauty that is Heaven—the presence of God, who is the source of all glory and beauty.