This morning a bird I could not name spanned a sun I could not tame and on the road the dazzled day turned and turned its winding way. Through chicanes, past milkbars ran the path to work, the time to plan, but I was struck by birds in view on Kookaburra Avenue. And God I’mContinue reading “Birdsville, Werribee”
Category Archives: Devotional
Ordinary Time
Meanwhile, pluck tomatoesripe from the garden.Watch the quinces shed their fur,turn late-summer-yellow,and burst with promise whilecockatoos eye them off.Check the peaches.See the opening flowers on the lemon tree.Cut the roses, deck the table.Water, plant and wait.Number days and count the joysand trust that tears shall cease.
Yet
…my road, My rugged way to heaven, please God. (Christina Rossetti, “Old and New Year Ditties”) Sometimes a harvest, sometimes fallow, sometimes Job’s cut-down tree, the year passes in a sighing nonetheless, a barely whispered “Yet”: yet this is not all, this is not how all years shall go, this is not the only movementContinue reading “Yet”
Christmas Day: Last Last Thing
After all we have done and left undone,after joy, after grief, after unbelief,after wrapping paper scattered on floor,after food is gone or stashed away,after conversations thrive or starve,after bombs are thrown and names are known,after fire and flood, after duties done,after every going down of Sun,the darkness still has not overcome,the darkness will not overcome.
Advent 24: Incarnate
Christmas hath a darkness Brighter than the blazing noon… (Christina Rossetti, “Christmas Eve”) Minutes before the shops shut, I walked supermarket aisles with other forgetful ones, gleaning the last sheaves of festive cheer while the muzak paused to say it was time. And two millennia ago, a carpenter and his pregnant bride found themselves strappedContinue reading “Advent 24: Incarnate”
Advent 23: In Darkness
…he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.(Psalm 143:3 KJV) One Christmas,my brother and I sleeping onfold-out beds in our grandparents’ living room,I found myself awakewell past the usual hour, andmy thoughts like the room plungedin obsessive black, savefor a red electric glow from someunidentified source, I knewContinue reading “Advent 23: In Darkness”
Advent 22: Remember your last end
But for now, in what passes as daylight, remember night: remember those who dwell in night, remember the night that lies before those who fail to remember the light. Remember the absence of memory or light, remember the path out of darkness tonight.
Advent 21: Neither slumber nor sleep
In a creaking house for family feasting, I satas summer light streamed through leadlight doors andcracks in curtains,fairy lights twinkling on pine tree whileI rocked my youngest, disrupted bythe change of place, his olderbrother’s noise and the stubborn light,and tried to make a darkness conduciveto an eight-month child’s much-needed sleep,and fancied the Fatherkeeping vigil byContinue reading “Advent 21: Neither slumber nor sleep”
Advent 20: and earth shall melt away
…heaven cannot hold him,Nor earth sustain;Heaven and earth shall flee awayWhen he comes to reign…(Christina Rossetti, “In the Bleak Midwinter”) While fires burned, I retreatedto safer, internal climes, denying heat.Discomfort seemed unreasonable,inconvenient that we should be so troubled.Yet world rarely does as it’s told,pointing a finger at us as we point back at it.If worldContinue reading “Advent 20: and earth shall melt away”
Advent 19: No cry of distress in our streets
This we long for:homes of flourishing,hearts of abundance,generous speech and thoughts and hands, well-watered gardens and evening cool,children like olive plants,fruit in season and out,and ever fruitful words and deeds, no harvest passing empty,no word bringing blight,no failing crop or government,no cry of distress in our streets, and the will to will,the longing to long,theContinue reading “Advent 19: No cry of distress in our streets”
The Consolations of Writing 