I purchased a large book of poems by Louise Gluck and this was the first poem I read in the collection. It is called Matins. Matins is the first liturgy (Christian) of the day, celebrated from midnight to dawn (I think). I am currently doing a yoga Sadhana at 4:30am every. morning and yes I am virtue signaling. The 2 hours before sunrise are called the ambrosial hours – those are the best times to meditate apparently for some supernatural reason. This past week I also listened to a random video by Sadhguru on waking at 3:40am. Bibliomancy is when you flip randomly, or guided by the invisible hand of fate, to a section from a book and use this for prophetic ends.

I love the first lines “forgive me if I say I love you.” I once said something a bit more weaselly than “I love you.” I did want forgiveness for saying this. I felt sort of caught with my hand in the proverbial cookie jar and this is what I said. Sometimes you can’t say things like that – true or not. Is Louise lying here? She writes that she can’t love what she can’t conceive so is it the case that the object of her love is powerful and that she is panicked? (also I love that we use a k when adding ed to panic)

This is the hawthorn. It is a symbol of transformation. It also is good for heart disease.

This is the foxglove – also good for heart disease. Foxglove symbolize magic, intuition — apparently bees and faeries like foxgloves. They are lovely and have a sort of gradient coloration sometimes. (Inconsistent!)

“Is this what you mean us to think, does this explain the silence of the morning, the crickets not yet rubbing their wings, the cats not fighting in the yard?”

Sigh!

I know what this means, I can feel it, but I cant explain it. The beginning of things, the beginning of meaning, the beginning of disclosure before there is anything to disclose.

Apparently Gluck wrote another poem called Matins as well. Maybe she wrote many. Maybe these are prayers.