“Beauty bids and gathers and bestirs to itself by the longing to have it. It is the persistence of all things.”
Last week at Templeton, we welcomed poet and friend of the Templeton Honors College, Christine Perrin, to share poetry from her latest work, Dark Gospel: Figure of Descent. In this body of work, Perrin speaks with ancient writers and thinkers, gods and goddesses of mythology, Scripture, and her own family through the words of her poetry.
Throughout the evening, select poems from the work were first read by a friend intentionally chosen by Perrin, followed by a reflection from the poet on the creation of the work, and finally read again by Perrin herself. Perrin encouraged the audience during the time of question and answer at the event to write, create, and think with a community. It was a gift to witness that communal creation between the poet and her friends reading the words that she wrote. And it was a particularly special gift to hear Christine Perrin and Dean Brian Williams read "In Reply", the poem commissioned for the Templeton Honors College for its 25th Anniversary, in Templeton Hall with an audience of Beauty-seeking students, faculty, alumni, and friends.
Thank you to Christine Perrin for sharing her time and her words with us!
"In Reply" by Christine Perrin
“And there it is ahead of all as Goal, as the Beloved, as the Cause toward which all things move…” Dionysios the Areopagite, The Divine Names
Beauty bids and gathers and bestirs
to itself by the longing to have it.
It is the persistence of all things.
That day we lost the key in the woods
the blackbirds flew up all at once in a field,
the sun flashing on their hundred wings,
or the ceiling of the cathedral that pulls
our necks back to trace the fluent stone
till we see blue heavens come inside—
rest, movement, intelligence divine
traveling in a circle and a line,
in a spiral—turning unceasingly
around the beautiful and the good.
We yearn and it becomes us;
it may bring us the beatitude
of not belonging to ourselves one day.
We strive as best we can, poised
between lift and weight, thrust and drag—
yes, a careful shape, but, also, raised
like a wing gliding on an unseen wind
that makes flight, or the December night
we left the house and the warm fire,
to see the three planets align
and danced together in reply.
Commissioned for the 25th Anniversary of the Templeton Honors College from the poet Christine Perrin, a long-time friend of the Honors College.