Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
If We are a School of Poetry, Then When is Recess?
…what we mean to establish is a school for the Lord’s service
-St. Benedict’s prologue to his Rule
1997 English edition, Ampleforth Abbey
When a poet consecrates a poem
(Which is in the nature of what poets do)
And a soul-friend breathes beauty into it
Then they have formed a school of poetry
Which is not a school for the Lord’s service
Except that it is – all this shifting of words
From chaos into meaning and purpose and love
Is a school of life, only without the home-room pledge
(or morning Mass or a chemistry lab)
We write in procession through cloisters of hope
To elevate each other as presentations of truth
