Extraordinary Poetry from St. John of the Cross

Here is some extraordinary poetry from There Is No Kind of Beauty by St. John of the Cross I’ve only taken a part of it but it reminds me a bit of Wallace Stevens.

Inhale the divine aroma of paradox.

*

“Do not be shocked by the fact

That our senses are like this:

The cause of the disorder

Is foreign to everything else.

This is why every creature

Finds itself alienated

While savoring that something

That fortune puts in our hands.

*

For once the depth of our will

Has been touched by deity

Deity alone can pay

The wages our will has earned

But so great is this beauty,

It is only seen by faith

And tasted by that something

That fortune puts into our hands

*

Tell me: from such a lover

Would you receive any pain?

Of all things in creation,

Only he has no flavor.

Simple, shapeless and lacking

All substance and location,

Reveling, there, in that something

That fortune puts into our hands.

*

Do not believe your interior life

(which has so much more value)

Can find joy or happiness

In things that give pleasure on earth:

Beyond all beautiful things,

Present, past and future,

It relishes that something

That fortune puts into our hands.

*

Whoever wants the advantage

Of what is still to be gained

--not what has been gained so far-

Makes a better investment of care.

That is why, to grow taller,

I will always bow down lower,

All the more to seize something

That fortune puts in our hands

*

I will never lose myself

For either grace or beauty,

For what in this world can be known

Through the bodily sense

Or understood by the mind,

No matter if it’s lofty,

But only for that something

That fortune puts into our hands.”