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Though I stagger.

When I stumble
when the dusty track
turns to quick-sand;
when I'm striving
when I fall;

...and though I stagger
and sink:
remember
Great One
(and I do not stammer now!)

these legs that struggle
these limbs that bend
these knees that You designed

were not built for kneeling.

Mat.

I like this Mat .
But coming from a strict RC background where the soles of our shoes faced the fire every night in prayer Im intrigued by your

mat james wrote:these knees that You designed

were not built for kneeling.

I liked this!

Personaly my knees had to be broken. Things would of been alot easier if I would of tried to kneel!

I imagine somebodies who's knees are stiff or perhaps hurt to bend (as happens when we get a bit older)
but also the image of somebody who continues, even when they stumble even when they hit quick sand, speaks to a spirit that wouldn't often kneel to ask for help.

I liked the confidence of the line '(and I do not stammer now!)'

Cool poem, Mat

Each of us staggerin'
each of us stumblin'

in the Great One's music

Thanks,
Boss

ps. About the knees... Tell that to Peter Hudson in the '71 Grand Final!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHQWarzF ... A&index=32

Sometimes I try telling "God" what his/her will is for me instead of asking what his/her will is for me! I usally hear a laugh quickly followed by self induced pain.

Well I like your knees, be they stiff or just recusant!
All hubris and no piety may make Jack a dull boy, but I'm pretty sure a little bit of hubris keeps both sides honest and true.

Well I like your knees, be they stiff or just recusant!
All hubris and no piety may make Jack a dull boy, but I'm pretty sure a little bit of hubris keeps both sides honest and true.

Well, nonny, I know they say; “Pride commeth before the fall” but disdain for authority is an ingrained Aussie trait.
So a New World god, for me and my kind, cannot be dominating nor can it demand that we kneel. These are Old World post-Egyptian ex-slave (Exodus) habits.
The refusal to kneel, in this poem, is not a cheeky attack on god; rather an attack on old slave/surf attitudes inherited from the distant past. This may be why (unconsciously) the Buddha finds favor in the West these days; his followers tend to “sit”; they don’t "kneel" like some submissive slave.

Christian/Catholic “kneeling”, for me, is a residue of the Jewish slave experience in ancient Egypt.
I prefer the Classical Greek attitude of freedom than the Middle Eastern penchant for submission to absolutism. Psychologically and philosophically, I am intuitively more Greek than Abrahamic, I suppose.
I am more New World than Old.
This is/was the cognition from which the poem emanated.

Thanks for your comments guys and dolls,
Mat.

As we bend our elbow to feed our body
maybe we bend our knee to feed our soul.
Which might be concealed as a modum in the knee cartilage

mat james wrote:
Psychologically and philosophically, I am intuitively more Greek than Abrahamic, I suppose.

Well, those Abrahamic types are good at some things, but nobody knows how to laugh like a pagan!