A Reading from the Book of Exile by Pádraig Ó Tuama
A Reading from the Book of Exile
Pádraig Ó Tuama
chapter one
there are no chapters
chapter two
he has been moved beyond belief
chapter three
and he is inching toward glory
with only his own story on his back
he has patched up holes that opened
where his coverings have cracked
and some shoes were never meant for hiking so
he left them far behind
there are simple things he needs
on journeys such as these
foodandloveanddrinkandwarmthandcomfort
and a bag that’s small enough
to carry all the failures and the idols
that he’s picked up on the way
there are some days
he only moves
an inch or two
this is the pace of glory here in exile
chapter four
there are some things too meaningful for talking
and even feeling leaves us full of grief
at all we touch and need and
can never speak of
we are living lives that we can‘t state the name of
we are loving things that
we can never bear
we attempt belief in things that we can not explain
and we rest uneasy in this
sometimesseemingcruelgame
and we rest with tension so
beautiful
its heartaching
chapter five
he has grown older here.
the body speaks its own
language
and
he has started listening
the unwritable chapter
and the place of
pain
is the place of
survival
(and sometimes barely that)
chapter six
there is no ending.
everything is here.
(so pitch a tent that you can live in
and find a friend to whom you’ll give
in
times of telling
times of testing
times of listening
times of resting)
there is no ending.
everything is here.
This is from Pádraig Ó Tuama's Readings from the Book of Exile (Canterbury Press, 2012), his second collection — written in the early years of his work at Corrymeela, the peace and reconciliation community in Northern Ireland.
I’ve often said that those who know exile know something about creating spaces of belonging for others, of invitation. Pádraig strikes me as someone who knows this place, which knowing a little of him, I can vouch something for — but whatever I say, it is clear through his words and the intimacy of the writing, the longing and the heartache, the patched shoes, the small bag, and the generosity of the giving of the words. I find it fascinating that he often uses religious form — the format is that of a biblical reading — to articulate what religion isn’t often very good at.
