Poem Inspired by "Honey from Stone"

I have written a few poems that were inspired by Chet Raymo's nonfiction books, Honey from Stone and Climbing Brandon. The following poem was a rearrangement of the words of Meister Eckhart, as seen in Raymo's Honey from Stone:

“Put on Your Jumping Shoes”—Found Poem

(the words of Meister Eckhart, 14th Century mystic,
as found in Chet Raymo’s “Honey from Stone”)

Up noble soul!
Put on your jumping shoes
Which are intellect and love!

The eye by which I see God
Is the same eye
By which he sees me.

My eye and the eye of God are

One eye
One vision
One knowledge &

One love.


Up noble soul!
Put on your jumping shoes
Which are intellect and love!

[Arrangement by Robert M. Coughlin
March 23, 2004]

For more informantion on Mesiter Eckhart, click on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart.

Here's another poem, this time inspired by another great book, Thomas Cahill's, How the Irish Saved Civilization:

St. Colmcille’s Illumination

In medieval Ireland
The miraculous happened every day:

St. Colmcille loved books so much
He “borrowed” his master’s illuminated psalter,
And in the dark began to copy it
By hand, ink against vellum.

Starlight, moonlight, and the
Five fingers of the saint’s left hand glowed--

Illuminating his right hand as he copied down,
In his beautiful Irish hand,
The precious psalms.

Brought before King Diarmait
For this little indiscretion, the King ruled:
“To every cow her calf . . .

To every book its copy."

Robert M. Coughlin
April 4, 2008