Nathan Hassall – Write a simple poem, my wife said, so I wrote a short one

Poet Nathan Hassall’s “Write a simple poem, my wife said, so I wrote a short one” transcends the small confines of its verbiage into the enormity of universal divinity. This handful of couplets descends toward that final luminous line in a way which leaves the reader encompassed in a radiant hush, contemplating oneness with all things. “‘Write a simple poem, my wife said, so I wrote a short one’, with its plainspoken lifts from the microcosmic conversation, that is almost sarcastic, into something much larger,” Nathan told The Dewdrop.

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Write a simple poem, my wife said, so I wrote a short one

where nobody made love
‘cos nobody fell in love

and nobody mourned
‘cos nobody died

and there was no fire
and there was no water

and there was no earth
but air, there was so much air

we drowned in its thick knot
and became a drop of light

falling into God

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