Stanzas for Edith Stein
Essentially, it is always a small, simple truth I have to tell how to go about living at the hand of the Lord.
(St Edith Stein)
Like so many of your century, you began
with complexity, with the way
the cosmos of self unspooled
at the terrors of the human heart on display.
The great certainties of the past crumbled
like lofty ruins, like those temple pillars
at Samson's last suicidal burst of force.
What remained? What lingered in the rubble?
Not knowing even yourself, you asked:
How could one self ever know another?
And from problem to problem you roamed, until
you found the smallest knowing nook to curl up in his hand.
How you remained, coiled in grace, in love,
when all about you tangled in hate,
was your life's simplest, hardest work,
the living work of your death, and ours.
Matthew Pullar is a Melbourne-based poet. In 2013 he was winner of SparkLit’s Young Australian Christian Writer of the Year for his unpublished manuscript, “Imperceptible Arms: A Memoir in Poems”. He has had poems published in Ekstasis, Poems for Ephesians and Reformed Journal.
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