Fountains

Why are apparitions of the Virgin Mary so often associated with the discovery of fountains, springs, unexpected underground streams? A  priest at the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham pointed this out yesterday, citing the memorable depiction of Jennifer Jones as Bernadette Soubirous, scrabbling in the dirt at Lourdes, digging for water as 'The Lady' had instructed her to, watched by a mocking and sceptical crowd. Something to do with fertility of earth and body, perhaps, and  sacred, healing, magical qualities attached the springs so found. Water is traditionally a feminine element, fluid and unstructured, compared to the more predictable structures of stone and brick of which churches are usually constructed. It must indeed have been a disturbing discovery to find a spring under the foundations of the reconstructed Anglican shrine here, at the beginning of the last century. Not the sort of elemental foundations on which to form a firm church. Or perhaps, just the opposite. Anyway Walsingham is one of the very few sacred sites, especially in the UK, where you can attend and participate in a religious 'sprinkling' of Holy Water, descending down stone steps to the origin of the spring, to receive silver ladles of water, then ascending again, with a gentle fountain playing all the while outside.


Just from sheer coincidence I managed to walk out of the second-hand bookshop here with a copy of Eleven British Poets: An Anthology  edited by Michael Schmidt in the 1980s, where the last ethos of Movement Poets sit alongside Heaney and Hughes. Elizabeth Jennings is the only woman poet. Well, perhaps not so much a coincidence, considering the lectures I'll be writing in the new academic year. But I opened the volume on Jennings' poem 'Fountain' which according to the notes, was her favourite out of her own poems. Here's the last verse:

Observe it there - the fountain, too fast for shadows,
Too wild for the lights which illuminate it to hold,
Even a moment, an ounce of water back;
Stare at such prodigality and consider
It is the elegance here, it is the taming,
The keeping fast in a thousand flowering sprays,
That build this energy up but lets the watchers
See in that sress an image of utter calm,
A stillness there. It is how we must have felt
Once at the edge of some perpetual stream
Fearful of touching, bringing no thirst at all,
Panicked by no perception of ourselves
But drawing the water down to the deepest wonder.

Comments

Popular Posts