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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: Today, sound. Lockdown Poems1

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am writing during this lockdown – as a way of expressing something, as a way of grounding myself in the physical experience of where I am, of keeping some kind of a record of what this time feels like, which is very different from what watching the news feels like, at least for me.  What emerges from this practice is simple, free, unpolished.

My notebook comes with me into the garden, and so it’s to the garden that I invite you now, especially if you are in a place where you have no view of green growing things, and hear no birdsong. I am aware how fortunate I am to have such a place, and how much harder it is to navigate this time without sight of spring.  So I hope that, as I share these poems with you, you can come outside in your imagination, and sit on the bench, and rest awile in the sun.

 

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Today – sound.  
Lockdown poems 1

Today, it is quiet.
Cars, if they pass at all,
come one by one, strung out,
separate,
dark beads running along
a dark thread.
The old sound comes, and goes,
comes, and goes.

Here, today, in this green space,
we hear, instead, the buzz of
long-tongued bees, feasting
and drunk among the primroses.
Primroses, spilling yellow,
everywhere, in the lawn
on which a faint dark
line threads – the path
of a soft deer
who comes by night.
And above, now,
buzzards and hawks
have the high sky to themselves,
flying in their wide circles.

I hear now, as if for the first time,
full birdsong, triumphant, liberated.
Suddenly an audience has turned
from its spent tables
towards this wide green stage,
and listened, amazed,
as loud song rises louder,
louder, knowing it will be heard.

 

 

 

 

Thank you – Jesus said I Am – publication day

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A year ago, on the Friday evening, we had a little launch for my new book, Jesus said, I am.
I am so grateful to all who helped support me then, and who have done so much to encourage me since.

andreaskevington's avatarAndrea Skevington

I just wanted to say thank you for the help and encouragement people have given me as this book has been launched. It’s been a very special time.

Here are a few pictures from the evening at St Andrew’s Melton.

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If you’d like a copy, you can ask your local bookshop, or order online.

Here are a few suggestions:

The publishers, BRF

Amazon

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Poem – Birdbath

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Today we are in a lull between storm systems, and there are patches of sunlight through the clouds.   The first primroses are emerging, already, and the garden is full of birds.  There is lots of shelter, and lots to eat – both insects who are thriving under the uncleared vegetation, and the seeds I put out.  Unfortunately, they were camera shy today, but I thought I’d share this with you anyway!

It is so good to feel part of this place of life, even in the depths of winter.

 

Birdbath

I watch the long tailed tits
gather on the birdbath

Like something Franciscan,

Then come the blackbirds,
territorial and vengeful,
sweeping their dark wings.

And the bareness of the
trees, the bareness
of the ground
seems clean,
hopeful,
in this unforgiving
northerly wind.
And I too am here,
and I too hope,
and dip my hand
in cold water –
blessed by birds.

Epiphany Retold – Looking out for stars

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I’m reposting these readings and thoughts on the visit of the wise men for Epiphany.

andreaskevington's avatarAndrea Skevington

Part of the Sunday Retold series, with my version of the reading Matthew 2:1-12

Please feel free to use any of my material that helps, saying where it is from.

Last time, I shared with you the story of Christmas Retold – Escape to Egypt, where we read of the terrible suffering that resulted from Herod’s fear and jealousy and love of power.  This time, I have been thinking smaller, more hopeful, something that might help today, and tomorrow, and the next.  We need to see the darkness, and the light.

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Epiphany – the new season we enter on 6th January – can mean  a sudden encounter with God, an intuition into the heart and meaning of things, a burst of enlightenment, an event which shows things as they really are at their deepest level.  As a season, it covers some key turning points in the story of God…

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Poem – Three Days #EverybodyNow

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I’m reposting this poem as part of #EverybodyNow, as Extinction Rebellion are focusing our minds on our bonds with the rest of the Earth, and the life of all creatures

andreaskevington's avatarAndrea Skevington

blackbird2 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…

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Poem: Jesus washes Judas’ feet.

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

Why did Judas do what he did?

 

We can’t know, of course.
Can we seek to imagine what motivated something so terrible?
Might it help to do so?

It is a truly terrible thing to betray a friend, but maybe Judas was expecting a very different outcome.  Maybe.

Maybe he  thought there was a good to be served by doing what he did. He must have felt he had a reason. Maybe he was trying to force Jesus’ hand, make him reveal and initiate the Kingdom in a dramatic burst.  Maybe, an idealist, he was disillusioned with small progress, maybe the way things were turning out was not what he expected or felt he signed up for.

Having wondered this, having thought, too, how well Jesus knew Judas, and that he knew what Judas was intending to do, I imagined that instead.  I wrote a response.

Here it is.

 

Jesus washes Judas’ feet.

That moment, when you knelt before him,
took off his sandals, readied the water,
did you look up?  Search his eyes?
Find in them some love, some trace
of all that had passed between you?

As you washed his feet, holding them in your hand,
watching the cool water soak away the dirt,
feeling bones through hard skin,
you knew he would leave the lit room,
and slip out into the dark night.

And yet, with these small daily things –
with washing, with breaking and sharing bread,
you reached out your hand, touched, fed.
Look, the kingdom is like this:

as small as a mustard seed, as yeast,
a box of treasure hidden away beneath the dirt.
See how such things become charged,
mighty, when so full of love. This is the way.

In that moment, when silence ebbed between you,
and you wrapped a towel around your waist;
when you knew, and he knew,  what would be,
you knelt before him, even so, and took off
his sandals, and gently washed his feet.
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This is a picture that was in display at the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Norwich Cathedral.  It shows the Jesus being betrayed, and healing, at the same moment.
I write about it in the last chapter of Jesus said, I am – finding life in the everyday
You might like to read the gospel story in John 13

American Rumi

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Thank you Poem Elf for this tribute to a poet whose poems are “fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry”

poemelf's avatarpoem elf

To the mountain of tributes to the great Mary Oliver, I add this little pebble.

In a world with so many hysterical people running loose, shouting and fighting and festering outrage, I miss her. Or I miss the idea of her, the poet walking along the shore in her barn jacket, quiet and alone, observing. This wise chronicler of grief and joy, confusion and discovery, this plain-dressing, plain-spoken witness to the extravagant beauty of the natural world, this translator of the unvoiced spiritual impulse, this New England gal, our very own American Rumi—is gone, alas. Fortunately her poems are here to stay. She’ll be read for ages.

The poem below is not one of her greatest hits, but I’ve been thinking about it since I came across it. Like so many of her poems, it’s planted a seed in my soul that has taken root.

This Morning

by Mary Oliver

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The Little Christmas Tree – still some copies available!

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Amazon have a few more copies – they seem to be keeping just ahead of demand. Other booksellers also have copies for Christmas.

andreaskevington's avatarAndrea Skevington

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Just in case some of you are beginning to think of buying or ordering books for Christmas, I thought I’d let you know that there are copies of my first book, The Little Christmas Tree, available.  You can order it from Lion, the publishers, as well as other online places like Waterstones  and Amazon, if you like to order things online.

Of course, if you have a local bookshop, you can always give them a ring and ask them to get it for you, if they don’t have it in stock.

It is always a pleasure to hear people say that their children have really enjoyed the book, and that it is part of their Christmas.  That’s such a privilege.

Here is another of the beautiful illustrations by Lorna Hussey – this one is the endpapers, of the wood after the storm.

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And a photo of the woods near where…

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