Prayer in the Garden

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Occasional Impressions Poetry Collections Secret joys and public spectacles Prayer in the Garden We meet in the garden. No, we have gone there together. Rather it is that we came here only to part - to go our separate ways: perhaps to sleep; perhaps to pray. The garden. Is this a place of sight? Or a place of scent? The sight is muted - dimmed - for it is late. Pale moonlight casts half-broken shadows on the grey ground And fleeting clouds intrude their presence, confusing, denying shape to the shapeless shadowland. The scent, too, is thinned for fragrance needs the heat of day to free its sensuous atoms from the lode. The dark, cool garden discloses only a hint of its radiant glory. And prayer or sleep? The sleep is to be preferred. Sleep asks no questions save to bring its own agenda of dreams: dreams to disturb - or to offer reverie dreams to distract - and have no consequence. ‘The dream dies with the dawning day.’ The prayer is more difficult. It expects encounter. It hopes for encounter and is disappointed if the encounter is not there: the encounter to explain to complain to justify the self to seek - no, to demand - the reassurance which all does fail if no encounter is offered - if the Other is not there. Betrayal. How prayer can be betrayal - betrayal long before the kiss. Betrayal by the Other, the Other part of self. Self-betrayal is the hardest part. No, the reassurance is not there. You must go this way alone without support without the confidence that all will be well. For otherwise it cannot help: it cannot count nor bring relief. It must seem pointless, futile, doomed to fail. No One sees, or hears, or cares for there is None to care. Yes, choose the sleep - the easier way. Now look - the others - they have chosen sleep. (Or rather, sleep has chosen them.) Good choice; wise choice. But in frustration, tell them off. Or is it jealousy? ‘Can you not wait and watch one hour?’ Betrayed by the Other self - betrayed by friends. But what can you expect in the half-lighted and half-scented garden - the place of grays and shadows while is there yet no hint of day. No, try again. Try again to pray. Pray, damn it! Pray - seek the encounter with the absent Other - The Other who will not come; The Other whose presence is absence. Another effort to pray. Come, answer me, affirm me, assure me that this is your way! But no - look, the others have chosen sleep again. Wise choice - they choose with the wisdom of innocence. So try again to pray. Pray one last time - or is that, try one last time? Perhaps this is the last chance - for there will be no further opportunity before death finally closes the door to prayer. Strange thought that - that this garden - without colour and with only the half-scent of night should be the last place of possible encounter, dialogue and grace. But there is no encounter; dialogue is denied; grace is absent. What now? Despair? Or determination? No answer is the answer. No encounter is the flavour of encounter. No grace is the substance of grace. So there you have it. No more to be done No more to be prayed. (And no more to be slept or dreamed.) Light hints at the return of day. The last day. Come on, let’s get on with it. The other betrayer is on his way.

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