Carrion Comfort (part 2)

Back in my post about CarrionComfort, I only got as far as commenting on the first four lines. So let me pick up that theme again.

Here’s Hopkins' complete poem (virtually guaranteed to confuse and perhaps bore any but the English majors among you) and my very poor attempt at a paraphrase (virtually guaranteed to annoy the English majors).

Make sure you read the first verse loudly, with anger. It voices the defiance of every human against the burden of existence and against the God who causes, or at least allows, our suffering.

Gerard Manly Hopkins

Nat Whilk Clerk

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee? Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer. Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

To give in to despair is an empty comfort, like feasting on a rotting corpse. I will not accept that option. Even though I am hanging on to whatever it means to be human by no more than an unravelling thread, I WILL NOT let go. I will not say “I can’t go on”. I can go on. I can at least take one more step forward. I can last the night and hope for a better day ahead. I will not give up. But what the fuck’s going on here? What sadist is playing this game with me? What’s the point of kicking the world out of orbit and sending lions to attack me? Why stare at my brokenness as though feeding on it, why mock me lying here like a pile of shit when all I want to do is run away and hide? [The next day?] Ok, so I can see that suffering builds character. I’ve come to accept that principle and although it has been hard going, I have nevertheless been given strength and joy and even laughter. But who should I cheer now that I’ve come out the other side of such suffering? Do I praise the one in heaven who mistreated me? Or do I give myself a cheer for persevering through such mistreatment? Maybe it’s a bit of each. I survived a godforsaken night that seemed like a year, fighting an unknown assailant for no apparent … Oh shit! That was God!

I won’t attempt any more detailed exposition, except to note the important allusions to Genesis 32:22-30, Matthew 27:46 and Psalm 22. What I do want to comment on is how I feel mistreated by God through my marriage and its ending, and the impact that is having on my faith. But that’s for the next posting.

—Nat.