This poem – “The Unexpected Blessing” – was written by one of the students, Evlynn Sharp,  on the Practical Wisdom of Ibn Arabi course, led by Jane Clark.

The Unexpected Blessing

Evlynn Sharp 

Early cadences of knowledge – of love –
Perhaps reveal the ancient longing
For what is real in us, a closeness,
A gratitude that each is a container
Of the sound of all. Whatever word

The ear itself receives between
Direction and the directionless
In-keys as a note, and every one
Everywhere a tone-pure epiphany.

Old conditioning is fathomed and undone;
There is a deeper rhythm of the possible,
The gentle intricacies of a kindness here,
All turning on the subtle whirr of dawn
Or the pitch of night in-kindling –

Determining in some, is a softness
In another – we are each all one,
Unbroken, sometimes broken, too,
A rune, yet nothing carved in stone
But like those stones of Calanais,

Letting through the light into this life,
Here. Where we speak with neither
An embellishment nor veil, and where
A lesser bond of closeness would be
Unthinkable. Did we come pre-existing,

A re-echo in the soul? And the sound
Of tenderness, intimacy – of truth –
As we face the speaking self: one
Witness, one will, one waiting,
One surrendering, one purposing,
And all this container here to hold;

Where the sacred words we laboured
That may have been lost in passing,
At last become the dignitaries
Of the heart; and surely here
In this container of each other,
The unexpected blessing: You.

Listen to audio recording of this poem