Silver-lined letters

Musings at Waterstone’s: on Faith January 1, 2012

Water by Philip Larkin

 

If I were called in

To construct a religion

I should make use of water.

 

Going to church

Would entail a fording

To dry, different clothes;

 

My litany would employ

Images of sousing,

A furious devout drench,

 

And I should raise in the east

A glass of water

Where any-angled light

Would congregate endlessly.

I was at Waterstone’s Piccadilly Circus to meet a friend for tea and scones when I stumbled upon Larkin’s Whitsun Weddings. Water, among other poems, left me mulling over it while I wandered off in my thoughts to muse about the fluidity and purity of religion and how it sharpens one’s perspective to bring the importance into focus.