THE MEETING WITH GOD by Jennifer Doane Upton

This is a poem dealing with an ambiguous asceticism…

On the one hand, this asceticism is necessary; on the other, it is in danger of going too far, of cutting off the very life it is attempting to heal. “My soul” is the Self that is beyond the identity of “I”.

This poem is from my recently-published collection Black Sun: Poems 1965-1985 (Finishing Line Press, 2014) which can be purchased here.

Photograph 'Dark River' by Ziut Klosinski

The Meeting with God

I, who do not know my own soul’s name

have already seen her,

disguised as the shadow of a river,

saying to me:

“Cry as much as you can

for you cannot live another day

without meeting God.

Your heart cannot be broken more.”

When I came back into the world

all those of the world made me forget you,

saying that I’d loved you more

than anyone could love God;

God would punish me, they all said,

by making me love even more.

How can I pretend not to know you

when I have loved you since

before the day I was born?

You are among a new people.

And my soul has come here

to help me find you.

“Give up the last thing you could own,”

she says,

“Take the last bite of food out of

your mouth.

Give up this life.”

Jennifer Doane Upton was born in eastern Kentucky in 1947, and studied under Wendell Berry at the University of Kentucky. In 1972 she moved to California where she studied poetry with Jack Gilbert and Jack Marshall, and published in several little magazines and anthologies. She has had a lifelong interest in the mystical poetry of the world, and later in life developed an interest in traditional metaphysics and comparative religion. In 2004 she returned to Kentucky with her husband Charles. The following year, her book 'Dark Way to Paradise: Dante’s Inferno in Light of the Spiritual Path' was published by Sophia Perennis. The present poem(s) are from her recently-published collection Black Sun: Poems 1965-1985 (Finishing Line Press, 2014) which can be purchased here.

~If you are interested in seeing your poetry appear in this blog, or submitting a poem by a woman that has inspired you, please click here for submission guidelines. I greatly look forward to hearing from you!~

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