Poetry

Poem: The Blackbird – Lockdown poems 7

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Lockdown Poem News!

I am delighted to be able to share with you that this poem was featured on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb on Friday 15th May at 22:00 BST.    You will be able to find a recording of the poem on the link above, under the date.  The programme is entitled Birdsong.     If you start at the beginning, you’ll hear a marvelous piece on nightingales, but if you are short of time, my contribution is just after 20 minutes in. You can read more about being on the programme here.

It’s so exciting!

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Welcome back to the garden. It’s been a harder week, this week, with much, and much needed, rain. It has felt more confined, being more indoors. I have ended up watching more news, and felt more sucked into our strange, shifting reality, our uncertainty.

As you may have gathered, these Lockdown Poems tend to emerge in bursts, and find their way here a little while later, so this poem was one that came on one of the brighter, sunnier days. Coming back to it now, it helps to connect with a time when it was less hard work to be in the moment, to settle into stillness, and to be open. It reminds me of all that. It reminds me of the connection we can feel to the creatures we share our space with, and what riches we can find in such connection.

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I hope, whatever your week has been like, you can take another moment to listen to the birdsong, as we did together in the last poem, and hear its dark and beautiful strangeness.

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A female blackbird – I can’t find the name of the photographer to credit this.

The Blackbird – lockdown 7

The blackbird lands just
behind my shoulder,
I hear the air in his throat,
I hear the slight preparations
for song,
then song.

I scarcely dare move my pencil,
and yet, my pencil moves.
Oh, for the gift of
interpretation of tongues,
that I might write,
in words, that song,
that meaning, the cares
belonging to this small soft being
with its deep globe eyes
and stabbing beak.

I see you, I hear you,
in all your dark and
beautiful strangeness,
as you shift from
spreading branch
to spreading branch,
open to receive you.

 

Poem: The Wood – Lockdown poems 6

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Welcome back to the garden for the next in this series of Lockdown Poems.  These strange lengthening days are bringing us new experiences – some are very unwelcome, but others have something to show us, something that might help us navigate our way to a better world after….
I hope you are finding moments of tranquility.  You are welcome to come and sit on this bench in your imagination, and hear the sounds of spring.

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What has struck me, like so many others, is the birdsong we can hear as our human hubub has quietened.  Although we live very near a small wood, I haven’t heard the birdsong from it before – not from the back of the garden, well past dawn.  Sometimes, in May, you can hear the dawn chorus before the traffic begins, but now there is very little traffic, and the wood’s loudness is astonishing.

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I hope you can hear birdsong where you are.  Here’s a link to a recording of the dawn chorus in the UK if you’d like to listen

So, here’s another poem which emerged from my practice of trying to deepen into contemplative prayer, but being open to the sounds of the natural world as they speak.

The wood – lockdown 6

This April morning,
not even particularly early,
I sat on this bench,
allowing my breath to deepen,
and settling into presence,
and into Presence,

I heard, for the first time,
the sound of the wood –
not too far away,
across the grey snake
of the road.

I heard it like a distant choir,
together and rejoicing,
or an orchestra playing jazz –
wild, improvised,
I heard it as the sound of life,
reaching me even here,
across the silent road,
unquenchable,
green through the blue air,
calling the trees awake,
calling the bluebells – up, up,
and flowing round
the fragile white anemones
as they bow their many heads.

 

Poem: Two Trees – Lockdown poems 5

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The next poem that came from this Lockdown is a little different from the others at first glance.  Once again, it was emerged on the page, and has had minimal tweeks.  I was intrigued to find it there.  Its subject is the trees in the Garden of Eden, and it asks tentative questions about human nature, and the human experience, which they raise for me.  I have wondered before why the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was prohibited, when so many religious systems seem very preoccupied with such knowlege.  I have wondered too how Jesus’ warnings against judging help us understand that, and balanced those warnings with the image of knowing a tree by its fruit, as he advises us to do.

I find it helps to allow the images – of trees, and fruit – to grow in our minds, and see what kind of shoots emerge. This is not a theological exploration, but a poetic instinct. Here,  I have been asking questions of myself, in a kind of uncertain echo of a chatechism, and allowed the questions to be there, partially or inadequately answered.  What if there is a choice, moment by moment – the fruit of the knowlege of good and evil, the fruit of life?  Might that have something to say to us as we seek to choose life, again and again?  Can we say yes to life, moment by moment, even in these moments?

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I don’t have two trees growing in the centre of my garden, but I do have this tree, whose early morning shadow delights me.  I hope you can make it out. The early light was tricky.  I thought I’d offer it to you to see if it might help give another image to add to the trees in this poem – a growing tree and its shadow.

 

 

Two trees – lockdown 5

Two trees grow in the midst of the garden; the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.   paraphrase from Genesis 2:9

What if we stand
in the middle of the garden,
choosing the wrong tree,
moment by moment,
again and again?
There they both grow –
tall, beautiful,
pleasing to the eye,
laden with fruit.

And we are drawn to one,
not the other, at least at first.
Wanting power to say things are
this, or that, the illusion of
control, wanting to judge,
wanting to be right.

Do we need to lay all that
hollow fruit aside in order
to eat from the tree of life?
I think so, yes,
Maybe empty-handed is better.

And what if we had made
a different choice
from the beginning?
Chosen that other tree,
unprohibited,
free.
What indeed!
And yet we did not,
and ever since, we have
hungered for its fruit.

And can we choose differently
now, each day, each moment?
I think so, yes, I think that we can
set down the fruit that
sours and spoils,
and choose life
again, and again,
and again.

Poem: Yes – Lockdown Poems 4. For Earth Day

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This is the next lockdown poem to emerge – today, here, is clear blue, but we had some stunning clouds a few days ago, and it was good to take a few moments to watch them.

It’s Earth Day, when we look to our place as part of the wonderful whole that is our home, the Earth, and look also to our responsibility to tend it.  One of the things I am experiencing in this time at home is a greater sense of connection, of love, for all that makes up the place, the ground that I’m part of here. I feel this love and connection are deeply significant.  I wonder if they are the necessary roots of a better way of living, one that acknowledges our dependence on the living Earth, and works to heal our environmental crisis, the crisis the living Earth is facing, including us.  These deep connections, this gratitude and love are, I am coming to think, more important than we know. I touched on these themes in a talk I gave at Girton College Chapel, and if you’d like to, you can read more about that here.

I hope there are ways, however small, that you can find connection with the natural world where you are.  Whether you can or not, you are welcome to join me here in your imagination, and sit in the sun.

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Yes, thank you – lockdown 4

The white clouds are coming now,
sails spread, a fanciful armada
on a soft southerly wind.
My skin feels the heat of the sun,
surprising. And I say thank you, and yes
to the blue and white of the sky,
to these various dark bees
among the comfrey,
heads dusted with pollen –
yes, drink your fill,
yes, thank you

To the peacock butterflies waiting
open-winged on the grass,
until another flies by,
and they rise and dance
as perfect as silent larks.
yes, and thank you

To the bright leaved hazel,
to the dark flowered fritillary lilies,
the yellow dandelions and their
white butterflies,
All, yes, thank you.

Poem: Red Leaves – Lockdown Poems 3

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I’ve been spending time with my notebook, while we’ve been in lockdown.  Usually, the words come from what’s going on around me, grounding myself in my ground.  I am aware how fortunate I am to have sight of new leaves, as here, but I hope these small verses give you a place where your imagination can connect with the spring, wherever you are.

They are just moments as they come.

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The subject of this poem springs from the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, which you can read about here.

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A moment in the garden, shared with you.

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Red leaves   lockdown 3
Oh, the sun through those red leaves,
shiny and shining,
And here, too, the smokebush,
just kindling to red flame,
before the leaf-smoke thickens,
as the sun’s light strengthens.
You can almost feel them growing,
as you bask in their cold fire.

It’s all holy.
All this good earth.
As my knees feel the
softness of grass,
and the air smells so of green,
and of the damp warming soil,
and grass, and primroses.

Yes.  This place.
Yes.  This time, even this.

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Poem: Owls – Lockdown Poems 2

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Welcome back, thank you for joining me again.    I hope we can take a few minutes to rest here.

I’m sharing another of my lockdown poems – simple, largely as they appear from my pencil – in the hope you’ll find some companionship, something that helps.  This one begins not in the garden, with light and green, but in the middle of the night.

Waking at night, or disturbed by dreams, thoughts race away.  If I remember to catch myself, I try to pause, to breathe, to notice.  Sometimes, you’re lucky enough to hear something wonderful, which breaks through the patterns of thoughts.
It’s been owls for me, lately. The night has its consolations.

 

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Owls – lockdown poems 2

Three nights now,
I have heard a pair of owls
in the garden.

 
Startled awake, suddenly,
by a fragment of
remembered news,
of fear,
and then, suddenly,
there they are –
the owls, calling
to each other, and,
it seems, to me.

Now, morning, and I look
up at the solemn black windows
of the barn, great eyes,
one shiny with a film of sky,
one matt and sightless.
I am glad we did not fix that glass.

There is room for an owl’s drawn in wings,
room to fly into that attic darkness,
where the peacock butterflies blink
their wings awake after the winter,
room to fill that desolate space
with life. May it be so. May it be so.

Poem: Easter 2020 Lockdown poems 9

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I have been writing this lockdown, and am sharing this poem with you first, although it is not the first I have written.  I am sharing it while we are still in the season of Easter – a strange, isolated Easter it’s been.

I wonder, though, if it is more like the first Easter than our usual celebrations, in many ways.  I wonder how it will seem, when we look back at it.

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Easter 2020  Lockdown 9

It wasn’t loud, or triumphant,
that first Easter.
The worship places were not full
of people shouting, together,
Alleluia.

I wonder if it was,
strangely, more like this.
Strange.  Shut away
for fear, for love,
behind closed doors,

quiet, while the world
fell apart, while dreams
lay cast aside, a coat
for a long-gone season.

And you came like a gardener,
maybe smelling of soil, with
sap-stains on your un-white,
un-shining clothes.  You brought
earth and growth with you

to Mary, who could not touch you,
to others, behind those doors
closed against the world. You
met them in their shut away places.

Maybe you will meet us too,
in our scattered homes, afraid,
untouched,  and working in shops,
and bending in fields, that we may
all eat in this wilderness,

maybe exhausted by
the work of healing,
and still holding the hands of those
who are passing into the darkness
of the tomb,
speaking softly in their ear.
Maybe these are the places you
are to be found, this year,
every year.

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

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As we approach Easter, many people take time to focus on the journey Jesus makes towards the cross.  Our usual practices at this time are those of meeting together, and remembering together.  We can’t do that this year.  Instead, as we stay inside, for love of each other, we will have to do things differently.

Perhaps we can focus on an inner journey, something quieter, more contemplative.  As we do so, we may find, as many have before, that we get to a place of deeper connection, more grounded truth, fuller love.  We may find new meaning in Jesus’ teaching and example, of letting things fall away, of finding himself alone, of allowing.

In case it helps, I’ve gathered together some of the blog posts here that you might find help.  I will add to it as more things occur to me, and as I write and update more.

Please feel free to use any of the resources you find helpful, and to share them, saying where they are from.
A little explanation about  Easter Retold

The Retold thread of my blog gives you sections from my book, “The Bible Story Retold in Twelve Chapters”, and “Prayers and Verses” that sits alongside it.  You can get hold of these through the internet, and maybe your local bookshop if they take orders for delivery.  It’s good for all ages, and is used in family services and care homes.

The House at Bethany, the Raising of Lazarus

Many spend time with this Gospel story in Holy Week.  It’s a story that means a great deal to me.  You can find some links below.

Sunday Retold – Lazarus raised from the dead

Here you will find the readings, and some things to ponder, as well as one of my Mary at your feet poem.  If you would like to focus on the poetry, you could go here:

The ‘Mary, at your feet’ poems – Two

The ‘Mary, at your feet’ poems – Three
This last also contains a contemplative prayer/writing exercise.

There are readings, things to do, things to reflect on, in the I Am series which draws on another of my books.

Jesus said, I Am – for Lent. Chapter 5, the Resurrection and the Life

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Artist – Frank Wesley

 

Other Holy Week stories – You can find these in Chapter 11 of my retelling – both editions:  The Bible Story Retold, and The Lion Classic Bible, which share the same text.  The second of these has lovely illustrations by Sophie Williamson.

Prayers and Verses also has a section in Chapter 11 called The Road to Good Friday, which you might find useful.

Maundy Thursday – The Last Supper, Jesus washes their feet.

Retold –
Retold: Maundy Thursday

Poem- Poem: Jesus washes Judas’ feet.

We also find two of the great I Am sayings in this narrative:
Jesus said, I Am – for Lent. Chapter 6 – I am the way, the truth and the life.

Jesus said, I Am – For Lent. Chapter 7, Vine

Later in the evening, when Jesus is arrested, there is a further I Am moment:

Lent: Jesus said I Am …… Holy Week, I am he – Jesus betrayed

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Jesus Washing the Feet of his Disciples, 1898 (oil and grisaille on paper) by Edelfelt, Albert Gustaf Aristides (1854-1905) chalk and grisaille on paper 58×47 © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden Finnish, out of copyright

Good Friday

Retold: Good Friday Retold

Now, we come to the new poems I’ve written for Good Friday – based on the seven sentences Jesus spoke from the cross. I’ve put them together with some readings, music, and art, to give you a Good Friday Meditation.  I’ve recorded the readings and poems, and they should appear on YouTube, on Good Friday, under my name.  I’ll post the links here when that happens

The poems themselves: Poems – Seven Sentences from the Cross

The meditations: A Good Friday Meditation – including 7 new poems

And I’ll add the YouTube material here.

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Angus Dei  Francisco de Zurbaran

 

Easter Sunday

A simple retelling: Retold: Easter Day!

If you are following in my books of Bible retellings and prayers, Chapter 12 moves us into New Life.

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Thank you for joining me.  I hope you find these things help.
Keep safe and well.
Bless you.

A Good Friday Meditation – including 7 new poems

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Welcome to this Good Friday Meditation.  This year, I had been invited to lead a meditation for a group of local churches, and was hoping to be able to put together something a little like what we have below.  Instead, we will be following this meditation online, on Good Friday afternoon, and I believe others will be joining in.

I am posting it early in case you might like to join in too.  As we cannot meet together this year, you might want to find a time when you can go through the meditation, perhaps with others.  I have  put together a very simple structure: a reading from the gospel story, one of my poems based on Jesus’ words from the cross, and a response from Psalm 22.

To that I have added music suggestions, with links to YouTube.  The music reflects a variety of styles, so please feel free to go with what you like.  If you find YouTube sends you a lot of ads, do remember the “skip Ad” box, bottom right, and the mute button!  If YouTube is distracting, you can go through without music, or find something else from another source.  The music is to help lead us into prayer, contemplation, worship, so whatever helps you do those things.  I anticipate the whole thing taking about an hour, depending how we go with the music.  Of course, you can always leave music playing in a tab while reading the next section of words.

I intend to try to put something very simple, without music, on YouTube.  If it all works, it’ll be available on YouTube on Good Friday, and I’ll post the link here.  It will be 20 minutes long.  You can pause it between each section, after the Psalm 22 response, and use the music and pictures here to help you.

Here is the YouTube link

If you’d like to see the poems all in one place, without the framework, you can find those here.

If you would like to use, or share, any of my material, please feel free to do so, saying where it is from.

I hope that’s explained things!

 

Now, as we prepare for our Good Friday meditation, let us focus our minds on Jesus, who loves us, and suffered for us.  May we have a deeper appreciation of that love and suffering this year.  May we, despite being apart, become more aware how deeply we are loved, and connected together.

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Elizabeth Frink, Chapel of the Transfiguration, St Edmundsbury Cathedral.

 

 

First sentence
Reading (from Matthew 27 27-37 and Luke 23 33-34) 
Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him.  They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spat on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Above his head they placed the written charge against him: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Two criminals were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do

We don’t know what we do,
from the careless word that
starts a fire of anger,
to the careless killing
of a butterfly  –
who knows what
wide effects,
what winds and rains,
begin and end with just one death?

We walk in darkness, so often,
and so often, we close our eyes,
we do not wish to know.
And Jesus, seeing this,
that his life would end
with angry shouts,
with fearful washing of hands,
with indifferent playing of dice,
Knowing all this, even so, he bore
our lawful unthinking violence,
our blundering disregard for consequences.
Another would pay for our actions.

Yet as the ripple of our acts flows out,
through the world, who knows where,
so too, now, flows forgiveness,
following on, spreading and transforming,
watering dry ground, lifting burdens
and carrying them away.

 

Response from Psalm 22: v3-5

Yet you are holy,
dwelling in the praises of Israel.
In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
To you they cried, and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

Music:  Salt of the Sound  Lamb of God (and Your Ways) both – 6 mins 28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_5fsX8TEp4

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Angus Dei  Francisco de Zurbaran

Second sentence
Reading (from Luke 23 39-43)
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”.  Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

 

Truly I say to you today you will be with me in paradise

Even as he hung upon the cross,
even with blood from that false crown
running down, not wiped away,
he saw the two men at his side,

One joined in mocking with the
priests and soldiers,
speaking from his pain,
and one did not, this second kept
his eyes on something else – a hope.

A hope the one he looked on was a king,
and of a kingdom where such things
as crosses are not lifted up,
a hope, even, of an end to death and pain –
this pain, this death.

And, ah, his king begins to speak,
of paradise.
What a world to gift him dying there.
A word of such sweetness, freedom, peace.
See  – clear water flowing, and flowers,
hear the sound of birds, the lazy
buzz of insects, the flutter of their wings.

What a word, at your end, to hold to,
to capture our beginning, once again.
But even more than this,
to be with him, beside the king,
seen and known,
held in the loving gaze of one who
hung up on the cross.
Might this, even this, be paradise?

 

Response from Psalm 22:v 27-28

All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
For kingship belongs to the Lord.

 

Music: Gabriel Faure  in Paradisum from Requiem 3 mins 50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvYt-QA9vT0

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What do you think of, when you think of paradise?

Third sentence
Reading (from John 19 25-27)
Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Son, here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

 

Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother

And still he sees, looks down
towards the one who bore him, bearing this,
the pain – not her own pain – worse,
the pain of watching one you love
twisting on those wooden beams,
the nails piercing her own flesh too.

The time has come when all the
treasure of her heart is broken open,
scattered, lying in the dirt.
What use to hold in mind
the words of angels,
the wealthy gifts brought by the wise,
what preparation Simeon’s warning,
when now she sees his agony with her eyes.
But she is not alone, his friend sees too.
John, who writes it down,
bears witness, even here, even so.
They turn their gaze upon each other
and see each other with new eyes –
a mother, and a son.
Gifting them each other –
his one last act of love,
this giving, from an empty cup.
This task of care can be ours too,
to behold each other in our pain,
and in our sorrow, walk each other home

 

Response from Psalm 22: v 9-11

Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.

 

Music:  Salt of the Sound – I’ll meet you where you are/Home to you  3 mins 31  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFlXL3cgI6Q

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Pieta Michelangelo

 

Fourth sentence
Reading (from Matthew 27 45-46)
From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

You felt your generous heart forsaken,
you felt the absence of the one who helps,
who was beside you, in the beginning,
who knew you from before first light.

We know too well the sparseness
of your isolation, without light,
and companionless,
in the darkness of our own long night.
And yet, within our dark, we find you there,
Find you have waited for us long days, and years,
while our poor eyes have
grown accustomed to the dark,
have learned at last to see you through our tears.
So as you know our pain and feel it,
you break our separation with your own.
Help us see the forsaken all around us,
invisible and in darkness, but seen by you.
May we seek each other in the dark,
May we have courage to cry out,
like you, and so be found.

 

Response from Psalm 22: v11, 14

Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.

I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint,
my heart is like wax
it is melted within my breast

Music: Casting Crowns  Praise you in this storm 5 mins 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YUGwUgBvTU

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Fifth sentence
Reading (from John 19 28)
Knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.”

I thirst

The well is deep, and you have nothing to draw with.
Where now that living water?
Where is that spring within you, gushing up
to fullness of life?
Do you remember, now,
the woman by the well?
Your deepening talk of thirst and water,
as now, again, you humbly ask another for a drink –
this time,
a sponge of sour wine?

Do you remember too, as the taste dries on your lips,
that wedding feast, where water changed to finest wine?
The richness and fullness of that beginning
soured to this cold bitterness.

You are our source, the spring of all our rivers
and still you thirst like us, need help to drink.
And so give us this grace,
that as we do for the least of these,
we may know we do for you.

May we see you
in each thirsty face.

Response from Psalm 22: v 15

My strength is dried up like a potsherd
and my tongue sticks to my jaws
you lay me in the dust of death

 

Music: Taise  O Lord hear my Prayer  7 mins 43
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKyU5BIlxc0

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Sixth sentence
Reading (John 19 29-30)
A  jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.  When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.”

It is finished.

All things come to an end.
Even pain like this,
Even the anger and the cruelty of a crowd,
of us all,
even the certainty of those so certain
of God they hang a man upon a tree.
Even the punishment and scapegoating
even violence,
even death.

The work is done.
It has all been borne.
You have poured out your love, your life.
You have carried our sorrows, suffered
under our iniquities.

Your head bowed now, you sink
into the final pain of nails,
your body bears no more,
having borne all.
The work is done.

Response from Psalm 22: v 24

For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted.
and he has not hidden his face from him
but has heard, when he cried to him.

Music:  Ola Gjeilo  Ubi Caritas 3 mins 30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp3IHBSyZKY

stars in the wood

 

 

Seventh sentence
Reading (from Luke 23 44-49)
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and  the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

 

Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit

There is darkness now, deep darkness,
over the face of the deep,
and no hovering like a brooding bird,
instead, the temple curtain torn in two,
from top to bottom,
and the Holy of Holies empty.

God is not found there,
but here, with this dying man
on a tree,
He calls out father, and talks of hands,
and we remember what his own hands have done,
how many were healed by their touch,
raised up and restored from cruelty and death,
and now, he too will be held in loving hands,
a reconciliation beyond our grasp,
a trust even at this moment of last breath.

Dying, he taught us to die,
dying he brought us life.
May we be reconciled, may we know
at our end, the comfort of those hands.

Response from Psalm 22: v 26

The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied
those who seek him shall praise the Lord
May your hearts live for ever.

Music:  John Tavener Svyati (trans O Holy One)  12 minutes 35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yssF24v5iBs

Or a traditional hymn, such as When I survey the wondrous cross.

 

salvador dali crucifixion

Detail from – Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) Salvador Dalí 1954
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

AA037808

Held

 

 

Poems – Seven Sentences from the Cross

/ andreaskevington / 2 Comments

This year, I had the privilege to be invited to lead a Good Friday meditation for a local group of churches, and began to work on a series of poems to share.

Of course, we can’t now gather together, we can’t share in the way we hoped. As the situation globally has become more serious, more confined, darker, those sentences that Jesus spoke from the cross began to take on more meaning for me.  I felt I could get a little closer to a contemplation of Jesus’ love and suffering, and see it in a new light, or even a new darkness.  These poems, emerging from that contemplation, helped me as I wrote them.  I hope they will help you in reading them, too.   Here then is the fruit of days working in the house.  I thought it might be good to have them all together, quite simply, like this.

In another post, I’ll share with you those poems as part of a structure including music and art, which you might like to use for your own meditations on Good Friday, or to share with others.  I reckon it might take about an hour to work through them, with all the readings.  I will post the link here.

I will try to learn how to make a short YouTube recording of them for Good Friday.  That will follow a simple pattern of Gospel reading, poem, response from a psalm. It will take 20 minutes.  I hope, all being well, it will be released on YouTube on Good Friday.  I’ll post a link here when it does.
And this is the link.
If you would like to share these poems, or use them in some other way, you are welcome to do so.  Please say where people can find them.

 

elizabeth frink

Elizabeth Frink, Chapel of the Transfiguration, St Edmundsbury Cathedral

 

1

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do

We don’t know what we do,
from the careless word that
starts a fire of anger,
to the careless killing
of a butterfly  –
who knows what
wide effects,
what winds and rains,
begin and end with just one death?

We walk in darkness, so often,
and so often, we close our eyes,
we do not wish to know.
And Jesus, seeing this,
that his life would end
with angry shouts,
with fearful washing of hands,
with indifferent playing of dice,
Knowing all this, even so, he bore
our lawful unthinking violence,
our blundering disregard for consequences.
Another would pay for our actions.

Yet as the ripple of our acts flows out,
through the world, who knows where,
so too, now, flows forgiveness,
following on, spreading and transforming,
watering dry ground, lifting burdens
and carrying them away.

 

2

Truly I say to you today you will be with me in paradise

Even as he hung upon the cross,
even with blood from that false crown
running down, not wiped away,
he saw the two men at his side,

One joined in mocking with the
priests and soldiers,
speaking from his pain,
and one did not, this second kept
his eyes on something else – a hope.

A hope the one he looked on was a king,
and of a kingdom where such things
as crosses are not lifted up,
a hope, even, of an end to death and pain –
this pain, this death.

And, ah, his king begins to speak,
of paradise.
What a world to gift him dying there.
A word of such sweetness, freedom, peace.
See  – clear water flowing, and flowers,
hear the sound of birds, the lazy
buzz of insects, the flutter of their wings.

What a word, at your end, to hold to,
to capture our beginning, once again.
But even more than this,
to be with him, beside the king,
seen and known,
held in the loving gaze of one who
hung up on the cross.
Might this, even this, be paradise?

 

3

Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother

And still he sees, looks down
towards the one who bore him, bearing this,
the pain – not her own pain – worse,
the pain of watching one you love
twisting on those wooden beams,
the nails piercing her own flesh too.

The time has come when all the
treasure of her heart is broken open,
scattered, lying in the dirt.
What use to hold in mind
the words of angels,
the wealthy gifts brought by the wise,
what preparation Simeon’s warning,
when now she sees his agony with her eyes.
But she is not alone, his friend sees too.
John, who writes it down,
bears witness, even here, even so.
They turn their gaze upon each other
and see each other with new eyes –
a mother, and a son.
Gifting them each other –
his one last act of love,
this giving, from an empty cup.
This task of care can be ours too,
to behold each other in our pain,
and in our sorrow, walk each other home

 

4

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

You felt your generous heart forsaken,
you felt the absence of the one who helps,
who was beside you, in the beginning,
who knew you from before first light.

We know too well the sparseness
of your isolation, without light,
and companionless,
in the darkness of our own long night.
And yet, within our dark, we find you there,
Find you have waited for us long days, and years,
while our poor eyes have
grown accustomed to the dark,
have learned at last to see you through our tears.
So as you know our pain and feel it,
you break our separation with your own.
Help us see the forsaken all around us,
invisible and in darkness, but seen by you.
May we seek each other in the dark,
May we have courage to cry out,
like you, and so be found.

 

5

I thirst

The well is deep, and you have nothing to draw with.
Where now that living water?
Where is that spring within you, gushing up
to fullness of life?
Do you remember, now,
the woman by the well?
Your deepening talk of thirst and water,
as now, again, you humbly ask another for a drink –
this time,
a sponge of sour wine?

Do you remember too, as the taste dries on your lips,
that wedding feast, where water changed to finest wine?
The richness and fullness of that beginning
soured to this cold bitterness.

You are our source, the spring of all our rivers
and still you thirst like us, need help to drink.
And so give us this grace,
that as we do for the least of these,
we may know we do for you.

May we see you
in each thirsty face.

6

It is finished.

All things come to an end.
Even pain like this,
Even the anger and the cruelty of a crowd,
of us all,
even the certainty of those so certain
of God they hang a man upon a tree.
Even the punishment and scapegoating
even violence,
even death.
The work is done.
It has all been borne.
You have poured out your love, your life.
You have carried our sorrows, suffered
under our iniquities.

Your head bowed now, you sink
into the final pain of nails,
your body bears no more,
having borne all.
The work is done.

 

7

Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit

There is darkness now, deep darkness,
over the face of the deep,
and no hovering like a brooding bird,
instead, the temple curtain torn in two,
from top to bottom,
and the Holy of Holies empty.

God is not found there,
but here, with this dying man
on a tree,
He calls out father, and talks of hands,
and we remember what his own hands have done,
how many were healed by their touch,
raised up and restored from cruelty and death,
and now, he too will be held in loving hands,
a reconciliation beyond our grasp,
a trust even at this moment of last breath.

Dying, he taught us to die,
dying he brought us life.
May we be reconciled, may we know
at our end, the comfort of those hands.

img_0630

The church at Selworthy Green, looking toward Exmoor

 

These poems owe an enormous debt to many sources.  If you are familiar with the Bible, you may find many resonances, and in some cases quotes.  I haven’t referenced these, in order to keep the flow.
However,  there is one reference I would like to acknowledge here:  in “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I directly quote from R S Thomas’ beautiful poem The Other. 

It is a poem about prayer, and seems very apt to read here.