On Larkin's Solar

Philip Larkin's poem 'Solar' from his 1974 collection High Windows has meant a lot to me over the years. As a student, its psalm-like meditation on the sun's apparent munificence seemed to chime with my faith in God's providential care. Reflecting back now with a fuller appreciation of what the unbelieving poet was actually doing with this piece allows a clarity that even more strongly brings home to me the stark contrast between the life of faith and the experience of those without.

You can find Larkin's poem here: https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495653-Solar-by-Philip-Larkin

On Larkin's Solar

Your sun blinded me,
That heraldic metaphor.
The glow of my faith obscured
How truly unfurnished
Your heaven was.
How you turned each symbol
In the light like a gold

Coin. Each face showing now
Glory now shining
Blank. I was still in the
Psalms, mesmerized by that
Blissful bridegroom, that
Joyous hero. I still am.
No angels for you.

That old Jacob's Ladder
Just a prop for fond
Projections. You eyeballed
Truth's sere singularity
Till the void appeared
Like a pupil. Paying your debt
To beauty alone.

 
Phillip Clarke, 18 Apr 2023

 

Firmament

A thin blue line, the scantest sapphire wisp,

To separate all this terrestrial sphere

And every living wight that here subsists –

The blinking whelp, the seer of many years –

From cold and airless black. My chest feels tight

To think this sliver might accommodate

The rollercoasting history of life.

Yet ancient eyes looked up to contemplate

A sturdy dome of lapis lazuli,

A gleaming vault, divinely-wrought, designed

To dam up all the waters of the sky.

Copernicus and comets undermined

And cracked this Heaven's pavement, still I feel

The promise of that firmamental blue;

Solidity dissolves but to reveal

A deeper constancy, a law more true.

 

For all is motion, world on whirling world

Careening through the night, yet kept on course

And governed by the same momentous word

That called them forth. We like to reinforce

Our tender faith with metaphors of stone

But, truth be told, our trust is better placed

In neither rock nor sky, but Him alone

Who carved His little wards this breathing space.

 

For we ourselves are dust, we'll blow away,

Our greatest feats but eddies in the breeze.

The One alone who wrote our DNA

Can recollect our atoms, should He please.

Yes we are dust, but turning in the light,

Mere motes adrift in glory borne aloft;

We have no up nor down, no left nor right,

We're wheeling through the dark – but never lost.

 

I chuckle at our insubstantial sky

Then watch it fade to twilight's mystic hue –

The wildest, deepest lapis lazuli

Beguiles my startled soul with boundless blue.

 

January 2023

Chesed

Courageous love, committed to the core,

Heroic constancy, unthought-of grace;

Enduring faithfulness forevermore

Set like a seal upon our fickle race;

Extraordinary kindness undeserved,

Determined care, by cold hearts undeterred.

Fili, December 2022