TAMIL NATIONAL FORUM
Selected
Writings -
Fr.
Chandiravarman Sinnathurai
A Lenten
Meditation
Friday, 3 March 2006
This poem was inspired by listening to Trevor,
�Van
the Man�, and
Purananooru
Drawing of the crucifixion by the mystic St John of the Cross.
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 Don
McLean singing Vincent (Starry Starry
Night) - McLean wrote Vincent in 1971 after reading a book
about the life of artist Vincent Van Gogh. In the 1970s, the Van
Gogh museum in Amsterdam played the song daily and a copy of the
sheet music, together with a set of Van Gogh's paint brushes, is
buried in a time capsule beneath the museum.
Starry starry night, paint your palette blue and
grey
Look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my
soul
Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills, in colors on the snowy linen
land
Now I understand what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen they did not know how, perhaps they'll listen
now
Starry starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in Vincent's eyes of china
blue
Colors changing hue, morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain are soothed beneath the artist's
loving hand
Chorus:
For they could not love you, but still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight, on that starry starry night
You took your life as lovers often do,
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you
Starry, starry night, portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls with eyes that watch the world and
can't forget.
Like the stranger that you've met, the ragged man in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose, lie crushed and broken on the
virgin snow
Now I think I know what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will. |
Shanthanam is standing on the lip of death pits
Saachi is
standing in the queues to gas chambers.
Little Tamil lads are chased towards
the charged wires of the fence.
Ibrahim is on a �rendition flight�
There
in that corner, with wafer and crucifix
Stands a Poet, bleeding on the Cross
Crying ―
�Life is for living
that it isn�t a show�♥
Hear the thud of guns
The rumble of the tanks
Marching of the feet
Coming for Liberation
God is at the gate of the camp
With pocket full of
food and medication,
The Poet with wafer and crucifix whispered�
It�s the
Lady from Ground Zero
Crying ―
�Life is for living
that it isn�t a
show�
Canon Dennis♣
spun us a story:
�God was inside the camp
With lice in his hair
And sore in his legs
And food missing from his
belly�
You call it Salvation eh?
Chuckles a �Bath-tub saint� stark naked;
black�n� blue
A Drunk in sub-zero Times Square,
Half-frozen to death, yet
Begging for a dime for the next round of blues�
�One for the road chief!� he
stammers with sunken cheeks.
Fractured humans not just painted dolls
Looking for broken
bread in an empty shed
The Poet with wafer and crucifix smiled�
It�s
Kierkegaard
talkin� with the ghost of
Van Gogh
A genius and an Apostle: That Individual in the presence of a
tortured expression.
Suffering for sanity, reading purple prose on the
flickering screen!
Pickled piety, what good is it, the jester quipped�
What�s wrong with
you, can�t you see? The philosopher asked.
The desert is in her pregnancy
Near to full-term
Near to birthing�
Burdened with a most astonishing pain
and anguish
Yet with divine beauty,
Delicate, exquisite
The Poet with
wafer and crucifix asked:
Who will lift God�s body from the Cross?
The tortured Man on the cross
opened his mouth and eyed,
Call for the ascetic
Tambourine
man
Ask of him to sing a whirling lamentation ―
�Life is for living
that it isn�t a show.�
♥ Words of
Van
Morrison, Live New York Session 1967 (The Definitive Collection)
♣
Canon Trevor Dennis, Dean at Chester Cathedral.
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