Orual
Before your face all questions die away.
She reached that point. I doubt I ever will.
I rage like she once did against the gods,
My list of accusations in my fist.
If you’re the lover, why hide in the night?
Why does the vision vanish if it’s real?
Why have you stolen what I love outright,
Leaving me empty? Holy things are dark
And I am lost. I don’t know where to turn.
So since there’s nowhere else to go, I stay,
Willing myself to look you in the face,
Accept your silence and not turn away.
For though you’re not the answer that I want,
What other answer would (O Christ!) suffice?
If you’re familiar with C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, you’ll not only recognise the allusions in this sonnet but see that I have borrowed heavily from Lewis’ own words (primarily from one of the final paragraphs of the novel)—a creative appropriation which I hope the great man, generous spirited as he was, wouldn’t have minded had he known.
Towards the end of a painful, embittering life, Lewis’ protagnist Orual writes, “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?” It was a place of acceptance, of peace, reached only after great anguish.
Perhaps you or I are haunted by hard questions that aren’t easily answered or even by (do we dare to admit it?) bitter accusations. Maybe one day, like Orual, we’ll reach that place of peace. Or perhaps we’ll carry those burdens in one form or another all our lives—weights we can’t get rid of, though we wish we could. In the meantime we’re left, bruised and bewildered as we are, asking with Peter—perhaps through gritted teeth—“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.1
John 6:68 (ESVUK)