Grace

faith free verse reflective

Grace - meaning Summary

Ineffable Moments Beyond Daily Life

Judith Wright's Grace contrasts ordinary daily life with rare, ineffable moments that interrupt it. The poem describes an experience beyond personal possession, intention, or ordinary feeling, something that arrives suddenly, transforms perception, and then vanishes. It is neither life nor death, not even love, but a transpersonal intrusion the speaker identifies as grace. The tone is reflective and registers wonder alongside the difficulty of putting such encounters into words.

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Living is dailiness, a simple bread that's worth the eating. But I have known a wine, a drunkenness that can't be spoken or sung without betraying it. Far past Yours or Mine, even past Ours, it has nothing at all to say; it slants a sudden laser through common day. It seems to have nothing to do with things at all, requires another element or dimension. Not contemplation brings it; it merely happens, past expectation and beyond intention; takes over the depth of flesh, the inward eye, is there, then vanishes. Does not live or die, because it occurs beyond the here and now, positives, negatives, what we hope and are. Not even being in love, or making love, brings it. It plunges a sword from a dark star. Maybe there was once a word for it. Call it grace. I have seen it, once or twice, through a human face.