Words

I read this poem recently and was overcome by the words and they way they move, and shape, and tingle on your tongue....still not sure what all it means.......reminds me of Dylan Thomas! Eugene Peterson took the title to one of his books from this sonnet: Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places.....

“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; _myself_ it speaks and spells,
Crying _What I do is me: for that I came_.

“I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is –
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”

Sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins