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This poem is taken from PN Review 131, Volume 26 Number 3, January - February 2000.

Two Poems P.J. Kavanagh

Constancy to an Ideal Object (S.T.C.)

'Reaching right through inside
the curtain' (Isaiah) - 'all
things counterfeit infinity'
(S.T.C.) - under our hand,
gloved by darkness,
all stills, thrills, at a power,
powerful, we feel, precisely
because it is not underhand.

'The best, the truly lovely
in each & all is God.
Therefore the truly Beloved
is the symbol of God.'
And not idolatry?
Though easy to love an absence...
As in his poem wonder-filled
Coleridge wondered, in the end.
...


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