Seems I've been duped (by the wonderful man pictured above) into writing my senior paper on some aspect or another of Gregory Nazianzus' autobiographical poetry. I've picked up Father McGuckin's fine biography of Gregory once more, finding again this lovely poem (a poem, by the way, which is inexplicably double-spaced, in spite of my best efforts):"St Gregory Nazianzen"
Of all the ancients,
You I think I could live with,
(some of the time)
comfortable in you
like an old coat
sagged and fraying in the back,
(its pockets drooping with important nothings
like string, an manuscripts of poems)
perfect for watching you off your guard,
rambling round your country garden,
planting roses, not turnips,
contrary to the manual
for a sensible monk;
master of the maybe;
anxious they might take you up all wrong;
shaking your first at the Emperor,
(once he had turned the corner
out of sight);
every foray into speech
a costed regret.
Your heart was like a spider's silk
swingling wildly at the slighest breeze,
too tender for this tumbling world
of mountebanks, and quacks, and gobs,
but tuned to hear the distant voices
of the singing stars
and marvel at the mercy of it all
-John McGuckin
1996
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