The Proclamation of the Virgin Mary by Harald Slott-Moller

Hello blog readers! It’s been a while since posted. I’ve been working on my collection of Poetry for Wild Goose, Iona Publishing, and have now submitted it. It’s been a huge project, taking me just under a year, and I’ve loved immersing myself in weaving together a pattern of words and images. I’ll let you know when I have news of a publication date, but I know it’ll be a little while before they get to it. As a quick reminder, it’s called The Year’s Circle, and it follows the seasons of the year – celebrating the unfolding natural world and the seasons some churches follow in their prayers and readings.

As many celebrate the Annunciation on 25th March, I thought I’d share with you the poem I’ve written for the new book. A meditation on the angel’s visit to Mary. In the book, I’ve placed it in Advent, at the time when we often celebrate Mary. It certainly suits spring too, with the stirrings of new life we see all around. I hope it also reminds us that new beginnings are often hidden, small, and in unexpected places. It reminds us to look beyond the surface of Empire and power, and see what is happening elsewhere. Those things may be more important than we think.

Anunciation 

I see her standing at the doorway
of her home as the earth
quickens at her feet, awakening.

A sudden shaft of light falls on her
and she raises her face to feel it
warm on her winter skin

For one joins her there, on the threshold,
with great wings folded. An indication,
if one were needed, that he comes from
another place, is made of other matter.

And so this strange meeting begins
at the threshold of Earth and Spirit,
Word and Flesh, Eternity and youth.
The shining one greets her
with a song of God’s favour,
of one-to-be-born of her –
as she draws back a breath
into her accustomed room, afraid,

Tests the future with a question.
For this high favour will take
her down a dark path, and a
dangerous one, with sanction
and scorn and incomprehension –
her own too.

Yet, even so, she takes that tentative step
forward, towards the light,
gives her Yes to all this, to being
a God-bearer, carrying the Anointed One
in the closed blood-dark room of her womb.

And so begins this strange folding of
the infinite, the Alpha and Omega,
into a single cell within a slight girl,
the most vulnerable of forms,
this Mary, full of grace.
What strange and troubling
gifts are these to stir the
brightening air.

Luke 1: 26-38

The Annunciation by Domenico Veneziano – Fitzwilliam Museum collection

Many paintings of this scene are strong on architecture. Artists, like Domenico Veneziano, were experimenting with their newly developed techniques of managing perspective. This one has a tiny pinprick in the centre, the vanishing point on which all lines converge. They ususally place Mary inside, or in some kind of indeterminate space like this one – a sheltered, nearly outdoor space. As I was meditating on the passage, I was struck by the image of thresholds, of liminal space, tentative and uncertain but open to possibility. In these early paintings, you often find the angel and Mary facing each other, like this, across the space, and then your eye is drawn to another line directly from the viewer to the background of the image. A window with a glimpse of a view, a door – in this case the door is closed. The closed door is a symbol of virginity, but here, I can’t help thinking of another collection of symbols – the closed off way back to the Garden of Eden, a way out of the confines of law and punishment, a door out into the freedom of a rich and green landscape. This line, front to back, out of the picture, forms a cross with the direction of gaze between the two figures, and that intrigues me. It does seem like an invitation to walk that path out towards the spring, towards new and abundant life.

I notice that many of you good readers are looking at my blog for poems on the themes of Holy Week, so here is a link that will help. I have a couple of new pieces for Easter Sunday, I’ll try to get those up here in the next week. Please do feel free to use my work, crediting me and this blog. It’s so good to know my work is being read in different parts of the world. Thank you for your support.

Holy Week at home – Some readings, poems, and Good Friday resources here on my blog.

Poems: Seven Sentences from the cross