Purvey Translates: In ipso enim vivimus et movemur et sumus {poetry for lent}

This is the third in a series of three poems I'm sharing from Thom Satterlee's Burning Wyclif.  For more background, read this first.


Purvey Translates: In ipso enim vivimus et movemur et sumus

Sometimes the words I translated
translated me, as when
I wrote, "In Him we live
and move and are." For days
I dwelled in that mystery
where all air seemed holy
and fearful. I believed
I was a rip running
through God's body, a tear
that only stopped
when I sat still. Then
at my desk, half in daydream
I felt myself placed
as a word on the page,
and suddenly I saw
the whole of who we are
and how we're bound together --
each one of us a word
in the Word of God,
and our life's goal as simple
as remembering the lines
He first drew us with,
the sound and sense
we made in that language
before languages.




Originally published in The Southern Review.

an explanation of {poetry for lent}