our teaching
is that time
and eternity
are locked in battle
that there are
two kingdoms
of light and darkness
and twelve guardians
who failed
against the Zodiac
we are light from light
and should return
to the light
but as soldiers
who fell
we are caged
in prisons
of the body
we fast at Christmas
and do penance
and prayer
at the winter solstice
because we fear
for the light
when the Sun
is so low
and what the dark
can do
the universe
hangs in the balance
our leader
was denounced
at Zaragoza
then he was taken
from Avila
to be condemned
at Bordeaux
at Trier
he suffered torture
and death
his companion
was sentenced
to the Isles of Scilly
and landed there
by coracle
the wide seas
are the haven of night
on this day
of solstice
light went out
naked
into the darkness abroad
the Saviour
infiltrates
our narrow world
yet the cruel stars
prevail
and time
has eclipsed
eternity
at the hole
of the year
where are we -
out in the Ocean
when are we -
at the light’s end
this day
tide us over
the dark
Oxford
21 December 2017
Priscillian the Bishop of Avila was charged and convicted of sorcery and then executed under Emperor Magnus Maximus at Trier in 385 AD. His companion Instantius was exiled to the Scillonian Isles.
I do not of course endorse the Priscillian heresy, but such a source contributed to the ascetic and rigorist and flesh-denying Christianity of Europe’s Atlantic coasts. I had in mind George Seferis’ ” fundamentally I am a question of light” and John Milton’s ” great vision of the guarded mount” in Lycidas.
I will doubtless be accused of writing a poem that is ” not New Zealand” (a dangerous ideological bar in some circles) but a whimsical and inverted version of this myth can be found in Samuel Butler’s ” Erewhon” (1872).