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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


EX NIHILO by KATHLEEN JESSIE RAINE

Poet Analysis

First Line: OUT OF NOTHING WE ARE MADE
Last Line: THE INCARNATION THAT WE LIVE.
Subject(s): LIFE; RELIGION; TEARS; THEOLOGY;

Out of nothing we are made,
Our cities rise upon the void,

And in chromium-plated bars,
Shadows drink their fill of tears,

Women's transient fingers pass
Over silks and flowers and glass,

Cameras and motor-cars
Spin on the hub of nothingness
On which revolve the years and stars.

Beyond the houses and the fields
Rise the forest-shrouded hills,
And upon each leaf is traced
The pattern of the eternal mind
That summons kingdoms from the dust.

Above the forests lie the clouds,
White fields where the soaring sight
Rests on the air's circumference,

And distant constellations move
About the centre of a thought
By the fiat of that love

Whose being is the breath of life,
The terra firma that we tread,
The divine body that we eat,
The incarnation that we live.



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