"I Fill the Sky with Words of Light." The title for this photograph comes from a poem by Thomas Merton, written in 1944. Sometimes the phrase sticks in my mind as a perfect way to describe how I think of landscape photography. It is also what pops into my head when I hear someone talking about how nature "speaks" to them. What does it mean for you? (Print for sale here)
The Holy Child's Song (1944)
Thomas Merton
When midnight occupied the porches of the Poet's reason
Sweeter than any bird
He heard the Holy Child.
Song
"When My kind Father, kinder than the sun,
With looks and smiles bends down
And utters My bodily life,
My flesh, obeying, praises Heaven like a smiling cloud.
Then I become the laughter of the watercourses.
I am the gay wheat fields, the serious hills:
I fill the sky with words of light, and My incarnate songs
Fly in and out the branches of My childish voice
Like thrushes in a tree.
"And when My Mother, pretty as a church,
Takes Me upon her lap, I laugh with love,
Loving to live in her flesh, which is My house and full of
light!
(Because the sky My Spirit enters in at all the windows)
O, then what songs and what incarnate joys
Dance in the brightest rays of My childish voice!
"In winter when the birds put down their flutes
And wind plays sharper than a fife upon the icy rain,
I sit in this crib,
And laugh like fire, and clap My golden hands:
To view my friends the timid beasts-
Their great brown flanks, muzzles and milky breath!
"Therefore come, shepherds, from your rocky hill,
And bend about My crib in wonder and adore My joy.
My glances are as good as wine.
The little rivers of My smile
Will wash away all ruins from your eyes,
As I lift up My hands,
As white as blackthorn blossoms,
And charm and kiss you with My seven sacraments.
"This seeming winter is your spring
When skies put off their armor:
Because My Heart already holds
The secret mortal wound,
By which I shall transform all deserts into garden-ground:
And there the peaceful trees,
All day say credos, being full of leaves -
And I will come and be your noon-day sun,
And make your shadows palaces of moving light:
And you will show Me your flowers."
When the midnight occupied the porches of the Poet's reason
Sweeter than any bird
He heard the Holy Child.