Disturbing Presence Of Joy Poem by gershon hepner

Feeling the disturbing presence of the joy
of elevated thoughts a man should try to find
a kindred spirit who will help him to enjoy
sublimity that should not ever be confined
to solitary contemplation of ideas
that are illuminated by the searching mind,
but must be shared with other minds and eyes and ears,
so that all insights may in tandem be refined.

Inspired by lines of Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” which Willoughby recites to Marianne by a stormy beach in Devon:

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man

7/9/08