Early on Saturday morning, the fire brigade was called to my church – a 150-year-old heritage-listed building on the corner of one of Melbourne’s most iconic streets, and the building which my fiancée and I recently booked to celebrate our marriage. That day, the Bible reading my church family was looking at in our devotional times was Luke 12:22-34, a passage which I, by pure coincidence, found myself writing about in my poem for that day. No-one could possibly have known how pertinent that passage would be to us. Our church still stands, but we will not be able to worship together there for a year at least. It is a time of mourning for all of us. Yet, when we gathered together yesterday as a whole church community in St Paul’s Cathedral and read Luke 12:22-34 again, we were reminded of the glorious truth of God’s promises to His people. This world’s treasures, even church buildings, will all be destroyed one day. But our Father has been pleased to give us the kingdom. Today I am posting two poems to reflect on this truth. Here is the first.
Psalm: Chorale
After J.S. Bach, “BWV 69: Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele”
This morning
I awoke to a harpsichord of birdthrum,
the air alight with strings, a wall
of horns against the trees
and phoenixes in
the distance praised in trumpet-hope.
Toices twirled and twined around
the fretful day, where fire
(and moth and rust)
destroy the treasures of our day.
Singing like the newly born, the birds
cared nothing for death.
Every day new,
they promised what no night will tarnish:
a day of every harmony resolved
and hope that fire cannot take.
The Consolations of Writing 