As part of the departmental graduation celebration, Alan Williams was commissioned to write a poem. Alan is Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion, a recent recipient of the prestigious Wolfson Fellowship, and the author of, among other things, the Masnavi of Rumi 2 vols (2019). The poem is reproduced here with permission as a print version (pdf) and audio recording (mp3).
TWENTY TWENTY VISION
Go forth and germinate your mind. Don’t stop
to ruminate forever, but be grateful
for what you’ve found here in these past few years.
Religions and Theology’s a subject
that can expose the things religion hides:
the academic keys we shared with you
were meant to give you access to all spaces
religion may have tried to close off, kept
as esoteric, secret, not for public
consumption by the uninitiated.
We taught you that this world is all a text,
and you can learn to read the codes, the language
in which that text was written (is still written).
It may be called a narrative or story,
a mystery, myth, a ritual formation,
a socio-economic situation,
a built environment of public private
enclaves, whose architecture is designed
in blueprints drawn from pre-conceptions
spawned... back in theology. This world’s a text.
Once we ‘went up’ to university
to ‘read’ Theology, to read Religions – what?
How funny those reactions friends and uncles
and fellow students had: ‘So you’re religious?’
‘You’ll only need to buy one book: the Bible!’
(It is the general attitude, not libel)
They did not know that we were cracking codes,
the secrets some would wish we did not know.
The secret is not always to oppress us,
sometimes what’s hidden most is what’s most precious.
The symbols, artefacts and ways of being
from cultures distant both in time and place
appear like deep-sea pearls exposed to sunlight,
brought up by plunging far below the surface.
The heroism of the human spirit,
alive and well but struggling for existence –
I have not mentioned poetry yet or beauty –
the codes not lost but found in a translation,
ideas that give us hope and consolation,
philosophies of life and liberation.
To see all ‘in a Grain of Sand... a Wild Flower...’
Can such infinities be seen and held?
What blinds our sight as darkness seems to fall?
Man’s inhumanity to man is all.
Colonial cataracts of obfuscation
can be removed, codes of intimidation
of colour, gender, age, and of appearance
are broken in the laser light of knowledge.
If ever it were said we had a mission,
it was to give you Twenty-Twenty Vision.
© Alan Williams 2020
