Migrants
He is that great void
we must enter, calling
to one another on our way
in the direction from which
he blows. What matter
if we should never arrive
to breed or to winter
in the climate of our conception?
Enough we have been given wings
and a needle in the mind
to respond to his bleak north.
There are times even at the Pole
when he, too, pauses in his withdrawal,
so that it is light there all night long.
The image of migrating geese is one which, for myself, immediately resonates with images, memories and moments of joy. Ornithology becomes ornitheology in these lines which chart the journey of prayer and pilgrimage through life, in a rhythm of movement and return embedded in the instincts by which migrant birds survive. The impetus to go North, the risks and losses and dangers of such a long journey, wings that beat to exhaustion and the uncertainty of feeding on the way, and that unerring sense of direction and directedness – all of these are the experience of this poet who prays, and this pray-er who writes poems about how hard it is to pray.
The characteristic realism all but falling over into pessimism is signalled in the surrendering question, "What matter if we should never arrive….? " Indeed arrival may suggest a completion that robs the search of further meaning, renders the quest both complete and annihilating of that inner drive by which the person praying is compelled towards the bleak north of the One who calls. Was Thomas thinking of the famous confession of Augustine, "Thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee."
But the One who calls, and to whom the praying person is drawn into a long migrant journey, is not to be thought bound by our quest, presumed to be present and there at journey's end. The rewards or blessings of all our praying are not the reason for the journey of prayer; "enough we have wings and a needle in the mind" and the energy and will for the journey. Though "will" may sound too definite, too suggestive that prayer is an impetus born in us rather than an instinct summoned by grace. But once again Thomas is content with ambiguity, and using a frequent metaphor for presence speaks of the mercy of the one who "pauses in his withdrawal, so that it is light there all night long." This image of night illumined by non-withdrawing presence is one of the loveliest and most comforting in all his poems on prayer. This God who awaits the arrival of the migrant heart, guided by the needle in the mind towards that bleak north out of which the wind of the Spirt of God blows.
The photo was taken in January, near Banchory – migrating geese feeding while they can.
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