Friday Poetry Blogging

Today's poem is pretty overtly religious, so it might seem strange to people who know me that it's one of my absolute favorites. I'm not a particularly religious person - by which I mean that I'm very interested in religion from a historical and cultural studies angle, but not so much as a practitioner. But this poem really hits me where I live in how it characterizes the tendency we have to get bound up in ourselves to the exclusion of more important, meaningful things. It's author was a "lesser" 19th century poet from the Isle of Man, but this particular poem seems very Zen to me. Anyway, I love it, and I hope you like it, too.

Indwelling
by T.E. Brown

IF thou couldst empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf,
And say—" This is not dead,"—
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art all replete with very thou,
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says :—" This is enow
Unto itself—’Twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me."