Out of Silence
poems by
SR. MARY AGNES
(Pamela Chalkley)
Sister Mary Agnes (Pamela Chalkley, 1928-2014) was a nun at the Monastery of Poor Clares, Lynton, Devon.
Her published works include:
Daffodils in Ice, 1972
No Ordinary Lover, 1973
A World of Stillnesses, 1976
Out of Silence includes poems taken from each of her published chapbooks, listed above, as well as poems unpublished in those collections, including some written after S.M.A’s departure from the convent. Pamela Chalkley sent this collection to me, a typescript manuscript, many years ago, probably in the 1980s. She hoped for help finding an American publisher.
In transcribing the typescript into Microsoft Word, I maintained her spelling, punctuation and formatting.
Many of the poems are untitled.
Dick Russell
CLOISTER
Often in silence through these cloisters
my days passed
There was the particular
silence before dawn,
at rest against a gull’s breast,
I watched light spread
from one white rib
to detail day…
Followed a certain pain,
activity and a persistent ache for something undefined:
the awakening.
Spring nights-and the moon engulfed me,
sailed pale over a fragment of wall
and the silence sang.
I was suspended
between the moon and dawn,
twilight to dusk, alone.
S.M.A.
A little longer in the desert,
I resolved…
and remained a lifetime, to discover
where its flowers grow.
Over the drought my eye
traced the veins of tributaries;
I bored holes in the sand
and found a reservoir.
In the cave carved out of a heart
I fed,
and drank
dry lips of love.
Night like a water lily
spread over me,
secret strains of music
shaded the tip of its petals and their base.
Its undiscovered springs
watered my fasting tongue,
its virgin moons
reflected in my eyes.
Forcing myself beyond
initial silences,
I found
a person in their heart.
I tap
A source of living form;
A future archeology
Is born.
S.M.A.
I heard the shadow of a cat,
I saw the black laburnum fall
In a wind’s fountain;
voices, a gesture, the polite conventions
concealing hate, despair in the bright sun,
the warm mouth of a flower,
a knife
in the robin’s song.
Your voice sounded,
softly modulated
in the unanswering emptiness,
the desolate fatigue,
Who care of birds of the air-
Let me hear
An answer to my plea,
Which is a wound, - which is me.
S.M.A.
Out of silence, images occur,
shadow-shawls absorb, release
dark symbols.
Something falls,
something silver falls
in whispers, like rain-streaks over walls
and latticed light
shivers in the sky
as willows weep.
A river winds.
Colours of day and night
emerge from sleep.
S.M.A.
Show me where, how,
to leave the lesser
for the greater
word.
To find the sense,
the music
of the dark, divine
reaches of consciousness,
to make these mine.
Show me where
the shining sound of rain
dissolves again
into its second nothingness;
where pain
vanishes through eyes of love,
and paradise is already gained on earth.
S.M.A.
Let the words of the heart
speak
where unneeded words
lie sleeping,
For the woken
heart wakes
with its love
unbroken,
and dawn wings messages
from sun to sun,
as night
from moon to moon.
Are we the laugh-peal stars,
Or deeper?
For our laughter
brims under water,
rises everywhere
with Christ,
before, after,
who is our joy.
S.M.A.
A world of stillnesses,
dim-fingered woods
which damp the singing morning,
draw strange silent veils about our heads
till we seem
moving meteors, passing
in colourless space
without a word of greeting,
without recognition, even
human for a fellow human being,
closed in this clam-mouth,
this sad
mad house.
S.M.A.
Yes, I have experienced it now,
the thing called love;
not in consuming passion of desire,
but in near-far fire,
not in the voice, but in the ear
it is a steeling of the heart to bear
the pain where I in sympathy depart to share
another’s sphere;
where all I thought I cared about, I lose
without care,
eager to be where only my love is
and find him there.
S.M.A.
I am lonely for you
and I ache with hunger
only to know you
here in the quiet
I can wait
no longer;
let us meet
in secret
unite and know
together,
know in the good
where we are freely oned,
sharing one food
God-bread
sharing one spirit,
led
to one green pasture,
one clear river,
learning Christ
together.
S.M.A.
Not again, not to-night,
the thought of you
must be hidden away till morning;
the mind freed
into its fluid flight
alone with God.
Too affection-bound
you twine like tendrils
round the trellis of my mind
and all my thoughts
long
to be imprisoned more.
Yet alone, I am young again
laughter free
song of a lark.
Do not follow me to-night
into the dark,
let me shake off your memory
that our one-ness
may be built
upon a fathomless reality.
S.M.A.
A breath ago
a crescent moon
overhung trees
and the sky was green,
now sun
which falls on snow
cuts a soft wedge
in my pillow-
a bay of light
in the dark sea
where I passed my night
and you, with me.
Woods are asleep,
Alert I wait
for the instant
they bud awake.
o, blackbird
you
are spilling notes
my heart’s echo.
S.M.A.
Silent to your silence, dawn glows from blue to white
where the dark oaks grow in the park
and stealthy stags lurk in woods
brown as bracken.
Tiny cleft hooves mark moist undergrowth;
sleep half fills my heart, as mists rise.
You, I, drawn apart, past sighs, unremembered
drowse in love, still dark, beneath lash-shadowed eyes.
S.M.A.
Break me no more
I have already been
too many times before
undone;
this final blow
may prove defeat to one
who has felt the salt of endless storm
ebb and flow through his heart,
all courage emptied out.
Consider this:
a little sun
may bud a flower,
an hour of peace,
release.
Break me no more.
HOME
How sweet these grasses are,
my tears, kept back
now drench
their bent stalks.
These are home.
Why can’t I always
taste its truth.
rest in its savoured arms?
This path is warm.
I kiss it with my hand.
The burning stone, my fingers
mould one fire.
All I have
or shall have
of desire
resolved in stone.
S.M.A.
Slowly on the wild walls
the wind sets
and the subsiding sun
fragments facets of frost
in frames of glass…
The song, the longed-for
song at last.
Can it be
that I have emerged, appeared
who lay in the dark so long?
S.M.A.
Listen to the air winding round me:
is there anywhere
where only air
and water
and the voices of snowdrops
aware of birds, sing
where love is still
an unspoilt thing?
S.M.A.
INVOCATION
May the hoop of the great moon encircle me
and may
music of snowdrop and daffodil
fill the sea,
as the pathway to the sun.
May April enchant, and may
the light of imagery
silver the first lark-dawn.
May spring come soon.
S.M.A.
DANDELION
Now you have me,
now
wind-friend,
see
I blow, drift
falter
never know whether
I shall be
another night or day.
Stay with me,
wind-friend,
blow if you will,
only clasp me
in the palm
of your hand
still.
S.M.A.
DEPARTURE
I have already gone.
When I wake in the morning
before my mind
has begun its course
over accustomed tracks
It is in a sun
hemisphere,
having forgotten overnight
and being
already in a foreign country.
S.M.A.
THE VISITOR
I recognize your dark palm, mysterious
shading the sun’s blare
white as wheat through my hair;
those fingers slim
dim
the indigo to red
spectrum of a childhood’s thrill;
their tips bite
frost to blight
a lark’s throat
before spring.
I have met you this way before,
your head’s shadow closer than my breast,
very dark to taste,
spelling a long pilgrimage
through desert waste
before moon-rest.
S.M.A.
THE CALLER
You knocked?
knock again
I am not at home
you will be
more welcome by my successor,
light will float
out of the windows, the walls, the doors,
radiant, transparent,
arms to embrace
you have arrived at a heart.
Night a trellis
of arched leaves
one or two blades of grass
at the two black
shoes on your feet
distance filled in
there is nothing beyond
this home you have found.
It is a laugh
a friend
it is a firm hand
the strength
of gift.
You called?
Call again
I do not say
come in
in has come out
to meet you.
S.M.A.
YOU
You are the sound of rain
to my flat plain’s drought,
the loud leaves’ lapping
or soft collapse of grasses,
misty, faint
beneath this wet weight.
My ear opens at last
to rest
from its stressed futility
-unfettered sky,
fertility
Is you.
When the walls
are shapeless dusk
a single shaft
laughs through a crack
under the door,
that light
is you.
S.M.A.
CATACOMB
In my palm, I hold your fold-
you I enfold;
trace the tender flow of your hair, where it falls
round the neck’s column and curls up your breast,
as an ebbing wave licks the sand.
I hold you in my hand-
but you have imprisoned me deeper,
in tunneled catacombs, where night reveals
contours too dazzlingly concealed for eyes to see.
As when sun shines on fingers, showing blood
marbled and stained like sea anenomes.
Flesh may not press, nor tulips slake their thirst
from fountains at your lips.
Breaking your heart for me,
you permeate the atmosphere,
and as a primrose which I once beheld
pale in dense undergrowth,
you wound me.
S.M.A.
All night I have lain at your side,
God of night,
the moon’s pale course
has been as the turning of a leaf
or as the breath of a moth
over my lashes,
before the first bird
burst like a bud the crystal empire
and dispersed the clarity of mystery.
For the taste of night
was delicious to my mouth
and the stars as cones
sprinkled over the dark conifer of night’s folds.
Now there remain
whispers of the hillside
murmuring through my ears,
as, blind,
I wander through the valley of day.
S.M.A.
I am wedded to you
loneliness
and because you are always with me
ready to catch me up in your embrace
I am never alone.
Because I have said good-bye to sound
I can always
be found
by you,
relentless bridegroom.
Deep In the forests of solitude
where all is wound
with dusk and whispering
only the peaceful
underground
covered with leaves
lies
listening
undisturbed
unhurt.
The shadow of a gull on a wall
the shadow of a heart
your love kisses
stab like hate,
depart.
S.M.A.
Day after day
this silence is too long
when stretched to year after year
alone
strangely
-and yet like you, I know
I am not alone.
Day after day
the sound of others’ mutual laughter
pierces my sensibility
(not that I envy their light-heartedness
denied it seems to me,
rather delight in it)
and yet
I am most strong, deprived of it
As Isaiah or a John in the wilderness
become a voice for God,
the human part
very human still,
tender, restless
for another human heart.
S.M.A.
LENT
Long shapeless days, wearyingly relentless,
dry air on stone
thin tributaries trickle, parch, what
is their sense,
lizards over sand? Barren rock-thirst
another sun-fan spread, another stone-faced moon
dry, uninhabited…
steps begin again, the march of hours
development of seasons, maddeningly patient,
seed to stripped bark
and the call through the dark
throat
this is desert monotony
endless
endless
no sea, no trees
no oasis
grooved forehead, furrowed cheek,
stones for eyes creak
in sockets…
the thirty-ninth day.
S.M.A.
MOSAIC
Drip your rain-light drops down dense unringing clay.
Daffodils will laugh at stone.
Wind and water ravel clouds and damp dry branches’ bone.
Morning, my melancholy wood
may spark ecstatic swords, then soften in caressing mood.
My tendrils cling desperate to dawn,
clutch mounting winds,
while wings flutter black and white and brush my brain.
Sun rises in a cup of blood,
echoes of gold rims sing in a goblet.
Hold it to my lip, o God.
S.M.A.
THE MUSICIAN
I sighed for a song;
I needed one.
I was alone
and could think of none of my own.
I listened in trees,
these
dusky musicians
whispered low airs
and murmurings shared with valleys and stars.
I heard the moon
outsilver stars’ shimmering choirs
in soprano tones and resonant bars;
the music she gave made my spirit
crave more-
and adore.
S.M.A.
FLUTE
Playing with my fingers on your flute
do I
touch the true note
set afloat
star-yachts on the sky’s smooth waves
roll remote
clouds smoother?
Do I
call on the moon to slide higher
clarify mind
with tubular light
with a pure treble pipe
cut
thrush-fall night?
S.M.A.
MUSIC
It springs from silence,
pierces emptiness,
grows
vibrates
flows
diminishes
disappears.
Our ears call for more
lonely
as when a friend
had filled our vacancy
and departed,
leaving us more conscious of our solitude
than before.
Another chord succeeds,
peoples our imagining;
nature, humanity,
angels, divinity;
accumulated love through the centuries,
our own included,
every pain,
fugitive flicker
of sentiment,
intellect,
caught in a strain,
contained in one
orchestrated song.
S.M.A.
MOTHER
Know, I am never far from you, I bear you
inwardly, as you bore me-as intimately too,
and as my flesh is of your own
and our early mesh, woven one,
so you are still my own
and everything about you, home
the features, eyes, the hands, your entire form
are the past, present, and to come,
the familiarity, the ease
of my living, and my peace.
SEAGULL
How I love the feel, the grey
of your smooth wing-tip, its feathered power,
its low breath over the blue roof
as you mount the sky’s crest upon crest,
as you sweep, close to boulders littering valleys’
sharp-cut colours-an expanse of red
where the bracken is dead
the fertile green river-strip,
I imagine you
dive into towering waves,
out in two the curve where they join
then rise
regal, to glide high, soar
over blue and blue
a flake
storing the roar in your thin beak
to spill in plaintive intervals
over listening hills.
S.M.A.
ROBIN
I heard you this morning, round, full
shrill, your golden reed.
The fire in your throat
burnt summer out
Day-close
Christ on the altar
is the period.
Omega among
twilight and roses,
wine and bread.
Wine and the bread of roses
are food at daybreak.
At dusk
cool in the dew of silence
they distill repose.
S.M.A.
WET MORNING
I look at my hand,
highlighted silk, stretched over transparent bone,
one or two veins with swollen notches, mapped in blue.
I listen to rain
swallow a mitigated roar of trees and water,
chipped by birds.
The light becomes
a person of distinctive character,
grouping objects, communicating a mood.
Eyes respond to its shadows
as do the leaves, frozen in an immobile haze,
which yesterday had flowed fluid to every breeze.
S.M.A.
MARGUERITE
Marguerite
was her biography,
wordless, being her own word, she expressed
a gentleness and the pain
of one who hesitates to assert
herself to herself-
although she deliberately chose
that should be so.
Of French origin,
she was tall, slim, distinguished,
her cheek-bones high-slav, almost
the retroussé nose, well-formed and feminine,
eyes, bright-brown as a robin’s and warm
as its winter breast.
Her voice was low, beautiful,
her words drawn out and lingered on,
the vocabulary rich, the speech
of one of a cultured intellect,
through which life’s vagaries, filtered and overcome
had left a vestige of bitterness.
She was a serious person,
a nun-
by choice from the age of twelve,
and still, at fifty, now her hair had grayed
and life had tested her integrity-
the outer trappings were no longer there,
un-needed now, she had transcended these.
God had concurred.
A habit would have been irrelevant;
the human race was her community,
she moved and thought as quietly in the world
as in the cloister.
A small cross sufficed as a symbol, and a ring.
She had become the summary of all her life had meant
with Christ, a sacrament.
S.M.A.
I knew you would come,
that the barren seasons must ultimately yield;
the tense silver tips split
to shower their blossom of snow.
I had seen vibrations tremble in a glow
over the hill, to herald your arrival:
you appear on a robin’s song, striding, young,
your hair, sheaves of corn,
damsons and pears falling from your hand,
ripe berries for rings,
your smile, apple-fresh.
I, this bleak year of Januaries, taste
twelve Augusts harvested.
END
