Poetry for the Last Week of Advent: The O Antiphons Part I

Holy Wisdom - icon, 1670s
Source: The Church Times

O Sapientia*

I cannot think unless I have been thought,

Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.

I cannot teach except as I am taught,

Or break the bread except as I am broken.

O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,

O Light within the light by which I see,

O Word beneath the words with which I speak,

O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,

O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,

O Memory of time, reminding me,

My Ground of Being, always grounding me,

My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me,

Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,

Come to me now, disguised as everything.

-- Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons, Canterbury Press, 2012

To hear the poet read his sonnet aloud, click HERE. 

*Scriptural source: Ecclesiastes 24: 3; Wisdom 8: 1 (the Apocrypha)