Religious
anthropology and ritual mystery, rare indeed in modern poetry, find expression in
From Behind the Blind, an illuminating volume of poems and prose pieces by
Robert Murphy. Throughout these writings the poet injects little packets of
symbols or allusions, which, in turn, suggest worlds of mythic connections in a
revealing, not an obscuring way. It occurred to me that I was reading passages
from The Golden Bough by James George Frasier, only in miniature and lyrical
forms.
Murphy’s
introductory poem entitled Doxology sets the tone with an elegant and soaring
hymn of praise. He neatly touches on the pagan god of earthly unity as well as
the biblical “I am who am” god. Murphy
also introduces the cultural concept of dreamtime, which he elaborates on in
subsequent poems. Here’s part of it,
Sleep
to wake to dream to hear
the
great God Pan at play
upon
his pipe, the wind
in
the willows quicken where
never
harm, nor fear on dread feet comes,
for
I am always with you there.
No comments:
Post a Comment