The Wednesday Poem: 'Advent' by Patrick Kavanagh

Advent

We have tested and tasted too much, lover -
Through a chink too wide there comes no wonder.
But here in this Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
O a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children; the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children; the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins

I chose this Kavanagh poem because we are in the Advent season and the poet’s language of mind-fasting and spirit-feasting speaks to us at this time.

Kavanagh (1904-1967) has a special place in the affections of Irish people. He came from farming background in Inniskeen, Co Monaghan, but during the thirty-five years in which he worked the small farm he was also writing poetry, climbing up to his attic room to write when the day’s work was done. In 1939, he left for Dublin, intending to be a full time poet and be part of the Irish literary scene. This move outward and immersion in urban living was to become for him a time of misunderstanding and near destitution. Tolerated as ‘a peasant poet’ by what he bitterly called ‘the standing army of Irish poets’, Kavanagh turned his great versifying skills to satire and critical innuendo. But he never ceased to question himself as to what poetry is for him, admitting later that ‘satire is fruitless prayer.’ He believed that poetry must reach the soul of readers, must build them up, not drag them down:
He knew that posterity has no use
For anything but the soul,
The lines that speak the passionate heart,
The spirit that lives alone, . . . (If Ever you go to Dublin Town, ).

Advent, published on Christmas Eve, 1942 is one of these self-questioning poems. He finds in the Advent austerity of traditional Catholicism a metaphor for recovering his poetic gift. Advent is a time for purification of mind and heart in preparation for the birth of Christ. He recalls from his youth in Inniskeen the purifying rituals of the season: ‘the dry black bread, the sugarless tea.’ They become for him a metaphor for the fasting he needs if he is to slough off false knowledges and charm back the luxury ‘of a child’s soul’ Let these knowledges be returned to ‘Doom’ – the place of death – he says, because they destroy our capacity for pure attention and wonder. Indeed, we may ask is the poet ahead of his time here, in warning that we today are replacing pure attention with ‘the fear of missing out’, a fear that is generated by our instant access to so much knowledge.

Having, in the first stanza, explored his own spirit inwardly, in the second he looks outward. He makes no judgments. He finds in all thing a newness. Even the tedious talking of an old fool does not bore. In the last line, the mysterious reference to ‘Time beginning’ (time with capital T) shows Kavanagh’s awareness that with the birth of Christ (Incarnation), God initiates a new presence with us. God has transformed time. No longer are we confined to chronological time, to living through one dreary event after another. For the fullness of Time (God’s Presence) is with us now in the everyday and breaks in at any time. All we need are the eyes of faith to see. Or the poet’s eyes as with Kavanagh (who once said ‘the poet is a theologian’).

This new Time as God’s Time is one of graciousness. For this Time we can only praise and give thanks. And the concluding stanza expresses this mood. Here the poet tells us that now the purification he desires no longer comes with effort or analysis – ‘and please God we shall not ask for reason’s payment. . nor analyse God’s breath in common statement.’ He feels blessed and graced with abundance. ‘Won’t we be rich’ Everything and everybody is his ‘love’. The Incarnation of this graciousness, the birth of Christ, hovers delicately over this stanza text like the surprise of a flower in winter. The poet himself believes poetic insight is always a surprise. For him it is also a gift of the Holy Spirit. But it must be guarded and nurtured by ‘the spirit that lives alone’ and it must not be scattered on trivia. Thus Kavanagh, finding in Advent a metaphor for poetic renewal, blessedly refreshes our language for appropriating this holy time.

Messages to: Jo O'Donovan rsm (The Congregation)
 

Images: Patrick Kavanagh statue along the Grand Canal in Dublin. Photos: Anne Walsh

Poetry commentary by Sr Jo previously published on mercyworld.org:

* Spring and Fall: To a Young Child by GM Hopkins sj

*This Above All is Precious and Remarkable by John Wain