The Rock

I first encountered The Rock when I was researching a short workshop on urban poetry. It seemed an unlikely basis for further adventures at first: the poem can appear to be a sort of mixture of Greek tragedy and archaic Christian theology dressed up to look like a modern hybrid of Blake and Auden.

But it isn't really that. It's a lot more powerful than that.

In a previous post, I quoted these lines. They reminded me about where my reward for my endeavours really lies, and what form it might take — and what form I should not expect it to take.

I have two more quotes that I will not comment on further:

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

In the vacant places
We will build with new bricks
Where the bricks are fallen
We will build with new stone
Where the beams are rotten
We will build with new timbers
Where the word is unspoken
We will build with new speech
There is work together
A Church for all
And a job for each
Every man to his work.