Into Corinth

by TM Tamish

“Caritas patiens est, benigna est. Caritas non æmulatur, non agit perperam, non inflatur, non est ambitiosa, non quærit quæ sua sunt, non irritatur, non cogitat malum, non gaudet super iniquitate, congaudet autem veritati: omnia suffert, omnia credit, omnia sperat, omnia sustinet.”
I Corninthians

Its wings descend
They leave us in a land unknown
All sights and sounds are unfamiliar
We two alone in wilderness
Lapis lapsuli and ochre
Aqueous skies have lowered.

Tenebrous light of what we shall know
Omnia suffert

Silence thunders all around
You take my hand – I am there
Turning into you, closer still
Our breath in hesitation hovers
And beyond roughhewn expanses
A sunset or a sunrise falls

We see what is in our hearts
Omnia credit

I hold you close
Below our feet verdant grass supports us
The purling of a running stream
Flows through your eyes
Backs warm with touch of sun
Hearts swell in deep communion

World emerges from where we stand
Omnia sperat

Minds flow back to where we live apart
Pages turning in distant books
Paradise surrounding opens arms to us
Permeating colloid souls
Passing into pastoral quiescence
No egress may extract its tincture.

Gates allow our entry here and hold
Omnia sustinet.

We walk in lands which sanctify
Grounds once touched, endure
We are changed and all the same
Unfamiliar may pass but once
Then is known forever to the heart
And so my love we shall abide.

Love …
beareth all, believeth all,
hopeth all, endureth all.

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