Poetry

Tea-maker

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A while ago, I found myself in Ipswich hospital.  Once things had calmed down a bit, I was moved to Brantham  Assessment Unit, where the lady described in the poem brought me tea.  As well as the NHS doctors who diagnosed, and prescribed medicine that made me better, there were people whose presence, kindness, and generosity of spirit was remarkably healing.  She was one of them.  It was so precious at the time, and still now the memory helps.  A simple cup of tea – it meant so much.

So often we think there is very little we can do for people, that our small gestures, our smiles and cups of tea and gentle touch  can’t make much difference in the face of whatever they are experiencing.  We are wrong when we think that – I know now.  It gave me hope and comfort.

If anyone knows who this lady is, and can pass on my thanks, I would be so grateful.
You can hear a recording of the poem by clicking on the title.

Tea-maker

Here, among the bleeping machines,
the close together trolleys,
and the thin curtains,
there are gifts.

A high slit of window, through
which I see a tree’s green
shimmering in far away light.

And you, lady,
aquamarine turban folded on your head,
swaying to the rhythm of the song
you hear, and hum
so deep, humming from the heart.
It is my gospel song.
You make tea for us,
stranded as we are,
as if it were a sacrament.
You hold each cup a moment,
as if in prayer, and you pass
mine to me with kindness.
I receive it, and feel the blessing of it.
Healing and peace,
presence,
here, even here.

Bees

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Hot and thundery, the English summer arrives – it’s too much all at once, at least for me.
Here is a small poem written watching the bees through my window, on the powerful, vivid, lavender.
It is also a poem touching on transformation, something that is beginning to emerge as a theme, although I am not quite sure where it is taking me……. which is perhaps, the point.

Bees

I watch them on the lavender,
each purple flowerstem a pendulum of bees,
keeping time with its humming weight,
White and red tailed, bumble and carder.

A few honeybees come, too,
so few, and already yellow
with sweetness.
And butterflies – cabbage whites,
bright as paper – unfolding
in the scent of flowers.

When the summer storms come,
when storm-rain falls in drops
as big as bumblebees, and
hail clatters against the glass,
they rise, as one, and fly
between the drops, too fast
for me to know where they shelter.

They return to rainwashed flowers
one by one as I gather a few new stems
bright, fragrant, and roll them
slowly in a jar of sugar,
ready, in the time to come,
for delicate sweet biscuits,
icing for dainty cakes.

I do not have the alchemy of bees,
but I have my own, under this roof.

Stamps

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I have been thinking about the apparently small things that connect us, that help, in times of trouble.  Living in a market town, you often see some of the same people in the street, and in the shops, as you go about running errands, dealing with the necessary things of life.  Sometimes the tiniest of connections can change your day, can make you feel closer the rest of your human family.  And sometimes, going out partly in search of such connection, you find you are able to give, as well as receive.
At least, I hope so.
So often, we underestimate the power of these small, slight gestures.
They matter.

 

Stamps

Two of the blinds were down,
Position Closed, but yours
hovered, unreadable, just
above your head.

There was   no queue,
and I approached you
cautiously,
clutching thick manila
envelopes.

Are you open? I asked.
As you raised your head,
I saw trails of tears down
your smudged cheeks,
such large heavy drops.

First class, two –
I’m so sorry.
You smiled, and
I stretched out my
hand and touched
fingertips to the glass,

Passed warm coins
through, which you
held a moment,
then gave me stamps,
straightening your back.

 

New Book News!

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We arrived back from a few days away to find that, as usual, some post had built up behind the door.  One of the envelopes was quite fat, and it contained a contract for a new book with BRF!  Good news!  It’s a book on the I Am sayings of Jesus,  with an emphasis on how we can respond, and embed these deep truths in our lives.

This book idea began when I was writing a series of meditations for BRF’s Quiet Spaces and found there were too  many ideas, too much to say, to compress into that concentrated format.  I am so grateful they were open to the idea of reading more.   I have till next May to write it, so it will be a while before it is available, but I shall keep you posted on this blog, and hopefully post a few snippets for you to try for yourselves.

I would also like to say thank you to the dear friends who have encouraged me, and especially the St John’s Church Advent Retreat, who patiently listened and tried out various ideas I had been developing, and helped no end with their thoughtful and generous response.

That was not the only post, though.  There was also a parcel containing this:

 

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Recently published, it’s the first time I have held Prayers and Verses in my hands, and it is a beautiful piece of work from Lion. It’s always a strange thing, to see your words printed on a white page, to see the way what you hoped for – something where the different verses and prayers seem to  interact with each other and enrich each other – might be happening on the page.  Below you will see it with its companion volume, The Bible Story Retold.

 

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And here is a spread from the book – I hope you will excuse the slightly variable focus!
In the UK we are facing a time of huge uncertainty, and I thought I would share with you these few prayers and verses. They are reflecting on the time of Exile in the Jewish story, which seems to be a relevant theme for many, whatever their nationality.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this little bit of good news.  May there be more good to come for you, too.

Consider

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Last week, I shared with you a poem about daily walks through   Fen Meadow  .
Here is another.  As it is the time for buttercups, buttercups creep into this one, too!

I often find walking the best time for praying, and thinking.  There is something about the rhythm of your body, of your feet in contact with the earth, that quiets the mind and makes prayer easier – at least for me.  As I was walking and turning over my worries/prayers before God, I felt that I was being reminded to pay attention instead to where I was.  In particular, the phrase “consider the lilies of the field” came into my mind.  Now, the lilies of this particular meadows are these beautiful buttercups that grow tall among the grasses, splashed with orchids and clover and birdsfoot trefoil. So, I spent a while considering them, and it was impossible not to feel my heart lift at the sight of so much beauty.

The next day, I approached my walk more enthusiastically – looking forward to seeing the buttercups again.  The sun was shining, they would be perfect.  When I arrived, a large sit-on mower was being driven up and down over the long grass, noisily spraying all that was left of the wild flowers behind it. It felt as if I had just begun to notice something good, when it was mown down.  The poem tells what happened next – if “happened” is the right word!

 

CONSIDER

I walked behind as he
mowed buttercups down –
scattering gold through
the cut grass –
I gleaned the shattered stems
to carry home.

But, as they wilted in a jar,
they darkened, and drew
to themselves the thought
of other things cut short –
of life, and joy, and hope,
of beauty crushed,
of anger that narrows to
silence –

And yet, today, I came back,
saw the ground  newly
hallowed by many
small shining flowers –
open, nodding to the blowing wind,
running over with saffron light.

Cut down, we flower again, again.
How it all murmurs constantly,
as the shuttle flies across
the loom, and bare feet
are dusted with gold.
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,  yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.   
Matthew 6:27-29

Fen Meadow – June. The power of memory.

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As we draw closer to the end of an academic year, as children begin to think of doing things for the last time – the last time in this class, this school, with these people, I have been thinking of the poignancy of repeated things coming to an end.   Every day you do something, and then you don’t. In this case, it was the walk to school – now itself a memory.  We passed through a piece of common land within our market town.  It was the nearest place we could go to run, roll down hills, sledge if the snow was right.  Each day, if it is your time for walking through it,  you can see some change in the growth of the plants, hear the birdsong, notice the way the path dusts your shoes, or muddies them. Sometimes it felt as if we were part of the place, and certainly the place is part of me. Each time you walk a familiar path, you can bring the experience of the previous times with you most strongly, it seems. Memory can be vivid, and overlay your experience of the now, as if you are in two times at once.  I try to explore that strange, split-second sensation in this poem.

I have some photos of the Fen Meadow buttercups, and orchids, but none of the willow trees yet.  Dry weather is necessary for the mounds of seeds the poem describes, and that has been hard to find so far this summer!  If I can find a dry moment with my camera, I shall share the pictures with you.  For now, I hope the poem helps you “see” the beauty of the place.

I hope you enjoy.

 

FEN MEADOW  – JUNE

We have been here so many times
before – this very spot – where
white clouds of seeds drift down
from willow trees, and fill our path.

You smile, and gather mounds of
whiteness – heaping the downy
seeds like warm snow.  What if
it stays till winter? You ask

And suddenly green grass
vanishes in a blaze of white
ice: bare trees, a low sun.
Our screams and laughter are

muffled by scarves as the old sledge
tips – I run my fingers over the scar
we left on the bark – and we shiver
in the warm sun. The very spot.

The breeze trembles again in full
leaves, and all around us buttercups
shine, and dandelion stems shudder.
You pick the clocks and blow

till bedtime, counting the hours:
lunchtime, morning, soft evening.
Your breath floats high, and
hangs in the air. Waiting

 

 

Three Days

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Photo from Flickr, photographer unknown

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I have been transplanting buttercups into the verge at the front of our house, where there is no pavement, and have been thinking about boundaries – in particular the contrast between the rather wild garden, full of life, and the fast road outside.  This poem, written a few years ago, came about as I watched a female blackbird mourn the death of her mate.  She kept vigil for three days, and then she went.  I did not see her again.  It made me think about not only the intensity, the reality of each creature’s experience, but how often we live in our own enclosed worlds, isolated from each other, and how hard it can be to cross those boundaries.   How hard to credit and acknowledge the fullness of the lives around us. To begin to do so, to begin to see and understand another,  seems to me an important step to take.

 

Three Days

She stayed by the side of the road,
her brown feathers ragged,
stayed by the place where her mate lay,
black against the tar,
one wing lifted,
catching the breeze –
the passing of many cars.

Startled, sometimes,
she scuttered away into
the green growth,
then returned,
holding her head on one side,
but always she was there,
for three long days
and, for all I knew, nights.

What was the quality of her grief,
of the bond that tied her there?
We know so little of each other,
the unknown world folded
inside each being.
I walked humbly then,
knowing only to be kind.

 

The ‘Mary, at your feet’ poems – Three

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Artist – Frank Wesley

This is the third and final ‘Mary, at your feet’ poem, which tells of an evening in Bethany, at the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Jesus is there, too. They are holding a feast to celebrate Lazarus coming back from the dead, and, it being near Jerusalem, they are joined by many others.

I found some spikenard on line, the closest I could find to nard, the rare perfume Mary pours over Jesus, and burnt it as I meditated on the story. It is pungent and earthy, an intense fragrance. As I meditated, I remembered all the times that Jesus had told stories of the Kingdom involving feasting, and banquets, and how he left us a shared meal to remember him. This particular banquet, celebrating a man coming back from the dead, seems like that.

I thought of Mary giving something so costly out of love, I thought of the other story of a woman anointing Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:36-50). And I remembered that Messiah means anointed one, and that the only earthly anointing Jesus receives is like this, at a feast, in an outpouring of love and gratitude.

This poem, too, was read at the Alive festival 2014, and I used it as a starting place for prayerful writing with a group of people. We burned spikenard, and imagined ourselves into the story. Some beautiful work resulted. People were able to connect with times when their life had been restored to them in some way, with times they were grateful, and wanted to pour our love and thanksgiving. For others, they felt they were outside, looking in at the feast.
In this poem I see the doors wide open, like the gates of the city in the book of Revelation (21:25).

You can read the first poem here
and the second one here

Mary, of Bethany, at your feet a third time

And so you come once more to Bethany,
and share a meal with Lazarus,
a resurrection feast,
foreshadowing, foreshining
all those kingdom feasts you told of:
wedding banquets with long tables
set wide with good things,
with room enough for all,
welcome at your table.

Now, in Bethany, the house is ablaze with light,
shutters and doors thrown open,
all wide open with joy unspeakable,
music, laughter, dancing, wild thanksgiving
for one who was dead is alive again,

And all night, while crowds pour in from Jerusalem,
the feast goes on, and on,
as Mary enters now, cheeks glistening with joy,
past her brother at your side, back from the grave.

She kneels at your feet again,
pours out extravagant nard,
scandalous anointing of your warm, living feet,
unbinds her hair and lets it flow like water
over them, wiping them in such reckless
and tender thanksgiving.
Fragrance fills the room, the house, the night,
as more people pour from Jerusalem to you,
to you, who comes to us in our weeping,
who shares our bread with us,
and brings us to such joy as this.

John 12:1-11

I am greatly honoured that this poem was read at the Good Friday Service of the Riverside Church, New York.
The whole service is recorded. The poem appears at about 21:50
You can see it here

Note, March 2024:

I am delighted this poem was shared by Diana Butler Bass on her substack.

https://open.substack.com/pub/dianabutlerbass/p/halfway-through-lent-mary-magdalene?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=46vqv

The ‘Mary, at your feet’ poems – Two

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Lazarus

Lazarus, by Jacquie Binns, with her permission.

We come to the second in the ‘Mary, at your feet’ sequence.  This, too, was read at the Alive festival, 2014.  It contains a bigger reversal than a poem can hold – from death to life, for it draws on Mary’s response to the death and raising of her brother Lazarus.

Martha went out to meet Jesus when he finally arrived, and their exchange is sorrowful and powerful and contains words of life and hope.  Mary stays inside, and when she finally goes to Jesus, we feel the depth of their mutual grief. In John’s gospel, where we find this account, the raising of Lazarus plays a crucial role in the events that lead to the crucifixion – the themes of death and life, life from death sound like a returning motif in a piece of music. Here, standing by Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus weeps with Mary, in the company of many who also grieve there.  And then, everything changes.

I am very grateful to Jacquie Binns for permission to use this photograph of her work. She is a textile artist and sculptor of rare vision, and it was an honour to meet her a few years ago, when I saw this piece. It is haunting and breathtaking.  I was particularly struck by the whiteness of the bindings, the light and whiteness seem so cold.  The set plaster holds the fabric grave-clothes in this one moment when the viewer sees Larazus for the first time, before we begin to know the power of what it is we see.

You can read the first poem in this sequence here.

 

Mary, sister of Lazarus, at your feet a second time

She sits in the shuttered room,
the room where her brother had laid,
dying, dead, the messengers sent out
returning empty, with no reply,
like prayers that bounce  off ceilings
or stick to the roof of the mouth,
choking with sorrow.
When you stay by the Jordan
that shuttered room is where Mary stays.

This is her shadowed valley, the dark forest of her path,
foreshadowing yours, it is all foreshadowing you.
The room where her brother had laid,

how can she ever leave it now?

But leave she did, at last, when you called for her,
she came quickly, running, trailing darkness behind
her weeping.  Mary, once more at your feet,
and when you saw her weeping, you wept too.

You know us in our grief.  You come to us, call to us.
In our darkest, most shuttered places,
your spirit moves, breaks with ours.
Death lay heavy upon you, too, and all the sooner for
this, what you do now, standing before that tomb.

For now, you who are Life,
Word made warm and beating flesh,
and weeping,
call Lazarus out,
You, who are life, and will rise,
call out one who is dead from the cold tomb.
You watch as they run to free him from the graveclothes,
pull darkness from him, calling in strange bewildered delight,
and you see Mary’s face as she sees now,
her brother, who was dead, once more in light,
astonished, seeing your glory, part of your glory,
as she weeps again, is weeping again
breathless with joy.

 

John 11:1-50

You can read the third poem here

 

 

The ‘Mary, at your feet’ poems – One

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Two years ago, in May, I was thinking about the three times Mary of Bethany was at Jesus’ feet.  One story is recounted in Luke, the other two in John, where they are a part of the extraordinary Lazarus narrative.  I wanted to explore them more, and I did so in what turned into a series of three poems.  I read early versions of these poems at a local Christian festival, Alive, and as the time of year comes around again, I find I am remembering them, and going back to those thoughts.  I share the first one with you today, and the others will come in their own time, over the next week or so, as I continue to turn them over in my mind.

This first one draws on the story in Luke’s gospel where Jesus visits the home of Martha and Mary, and Mary sits at his feet.  I have not referred to Martha directly, except for in the title.  I do feel her lack. I wonder, in particular, what happened next.  Maybe there are some poems to write about her, too.

There is so much to ponder in this story, but what caught my attention was how hard it is for us to be still, to be.  We are so distracted, so pulled by so many things. We can end up  feeling that those things are what define us. That it is what we do, or think, or believe, or  how people view us that makes us who we are. Just being doesn’t seem enough, but our efforts to be more or different or better than we are can be life-sapping.
Acceptance can be hard to accept!

In writing this poem, I hoped to create a place of stillness. The kind of place where contemplative prayer begins.  A place where we can open up a little to love, and light. A place where we know we are welcomed.

The photograph is taken in the Chapel of St Peter on the Wall, Bradwell on Sea, Essex.

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Mary, sister of Martha, at your feet for the first time

You came in search of rest
away from the road,
that bright, shadeless road,
where so many came,
and you gave so much.

You came and sat down
in the cool room,
the shutters pulled
against the heat,
and Mary sat, too,
and it was enough.
Just sat, quietly, at your feet,
her face turned up to
yours as she listened.
And you saw how the light
fell across her,
as if for the first time.

And this is what you want,
what you long for.
Not the elaborate
preparations we would make,
not ourselves swept and
scrubbed to perfection,
our acts and our
thoughts impeccable
in lifeless rows,
but to be,  here in this light,
to be, here at your feet,
Luke 10:38-42

 

You can read the second poem here

and the third one here