Oppression, Occupation and The Prayer of the Butterfly

Decided earlier this week to quietly change the colour and format of my blog.

Chose a cool blue-green with minimal ornamentation.

Wasn't sure if I liked it.  Seemed too, well,... cool, in a cold kind of way.

Nobody else said anything - didn't notice? Didn't like it? Too polite to say?

I didn't like it much - so back to my Art Nouveau design with the red butterfly.

One of my favourite thin books (cost me £1.80 I see) is Prayers from the Ark, by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold (translated by the novelist Rumer Godden). Mademoiselle de Gasztold started writing poetry during the German occupation of France. When confronting tyranny words matter - and in times of oppression poetry is the art of making words matter.

After the war she was helped to recover from serious illness in a Benedictine Abbey just outside Paris. This became her long term home as librarian and fitter of stained glass in the windows. Her poem prayers were first circulated privately then published in 1953 in French and in 1962 in English.

In this slim volume the prayers express the joyful response of each creature to God, the words capturing the unique character and beauty of the creature, expressing the mind of the Creator. One of them is the Prayer of the Butterfly. It reads well in English, but at times the subtleties of humour and allusion that convey precision of feeling and meaning are muted but not lost, in translation. A prayer expressing the fluttering delicacy of the fritillary captures exactly the restless inattentiveness of those of us who, seeing so many possibilities to experience, are frustrated by the finitude of time and the brevity of life. A kind of Ecclesiastes moment, this prayer.

The Prayer of the Butterfly

Lord!

Where was I?

Oh yes! This flower, this sun,

thank You! Your world is beautiful!

This scent of roses...

Where was I?

A drop of dew

rolls to sparkle in a lily's heart.

I have to go...

Where? I do not know!

The wind has painted fancies

on my wings.

Fancies...

Where was I?

Of yes! Lord,

I had something to tell you;

                                                                   Amen

Comments

[Ruth Gouldbourne]

I love, love, love this book!!

[Jim Gordon]

Enthusiasm understood Ruth. What's your favourite prayer in it? tell me and I'll post it. :)

[Ruth Gouldbourne]

Oh, how to choose.... I love the dog's prayer most, I think.