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Hiraeth
Hiraeth is a Welsh word with no precise English synonym or equivalent. I take it to mean a form of spiritual desolation formed by a nostalgia for a home we never had. How life was before the fall from grace and into the realm of mortality. A pre-lapsarian sense of the beauty of the garden of Eden: a time out of time, and a place out of place. I think it describes a widespread sense of spiritual homelessness and desolation common in the 21st century.
the sky is a swirling grey, blue in patches
cumulus clouds ferret away the sun
and the landscape bleeds into my eyes;
all is as it should not be
fire framed with ice
entombs my heart
everyday is a departure,
a goodbye prayer
that I cannot drag back into my mouth
I know this, yet I choose to forget
all the self-indulgences of time
all in me that does not rhyme.
I am glad that I do not know
what I do not know
it is a release and a blessing
like the wise fool and the simple mind
we must gather to a greatness
like the ooze of oil*
then throw it all away,
in spite of ourselves.
- ‘The Grandeur of God’, Gerard Manley-Hopkins SJ
