Volume > Issue > On the Trinity

On the Trinity

A POEM

By Sallie Odum | September 1984

When time was yet unmade nor seasons wrought,

Beginning’s birth unborn and unbegun,

Then God’s begotten, uncreated Son,

Unfleshed, unspoken Word, eternal thought,

In-being one within the Father, sought

To see the Father’s face and it was done;

And such the love when One looked upon One,

The wholeness of their love Another brought.

Proceeding unpreceded, utter Love,

The Lord of life, dwelt always, never less,

Between, into, within, throughout, among

The total One-ness, being not above

And not beneath, alike within Three-ness:

Infinity, thrice infinite, is One.

Herring Gulls

They quarrel in low tide mud

Over scraps of rotten food;

They rest on fishhouse…

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…

What Is the Purpose of Poetry?

Poetry was once understood to be an anthropological episteme, a way of knowing, if only through a glass darkly.