It’s not easy to talk about my own poetry because it generally comes from a place of not knowing.  I don’t think I’ve ever started a poem knowing where it would end up.  And although it’s true that poetry can sometimes lead to discovery, it can also lead to uncertainty, and that’s okay, too.  Uncertainty can be a door into wider awareness of the mystery that surrounds us.  Keats dubbed this state “negative capability,” the willingness to be in “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

It’s a condition that reminds me of the theological term, Via Negativa, which suggests that God can  never be fully known or described because the mind is unable to grasp infinitude.  So God is best approached by reflecting on what He is not.  That’s the way the thinking goes.  St. Thomas said that “to know that we do not know Him,” is the ultimate in human knowledge.  And if we look at the poetry of some of the early Christian mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen, we can find some moving examples of the Via Negativa at play.  When she writes, “The mystery of God hugs you in its all-encompassing arms,” uncertainty appears as a loving connection, a hug that can contain our fears and our losses, as well as our joys.

For me, Rilke is one of the most compelling travelers on the Via Negativa, and I think it’s because his poems reveal an intimate relationship with a personal God who encompasses knowing and not-knowing, light and dark.  “You, darkness that I come from,” he writes, “I love you more than any of the fires.”    

Here’s one more example of the Via Negativa by the Sufi poet, Rumi (1207 – 1273):

“God, whose love and joy

are present everywhere

can’t come to visit you

unless you aren’t there.”

     (trans. Stephen Mitchell)

I really like that one.  It’s not so much a description of mystery, really, as it is a reminder of the importance of getting out of our own way.