“Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.”St Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises Even this, Ignatius?When all are in retreat in their homes,when consoling and desolating spiritsvy for the attention of every moment,when truth is in short supplyand what truth we have isContinue reading “God in all this: For St Ignatius of Loyola”
Category Archives: Ordinary Time
As yet untitled
As the changing but constant expectationsof a year that no-one chose keep knockingand the day of the Lord lingers and tarries from my watch-post,I longto take this one quietly, on the bench,with Saul and the others who couldn’t run the race.No shame in being worn out whenthe swift themselves are flaggingand the flagsare all atContinue reading “As yet untitled”
Tidings
Listen: the almond has something white to announce…(Chris Wallace-Crabbe)Tiny white heralds like angels burstfrom coronawinter barren branch,whispering, echoing, promising.Listen:The time is slow but gives glimpses.The promise is faintbut continual.The season’s sure that waits in the whispers.Truer than winter, truer than spring:the eternal soon.
In Our Father’s House
I wrote this poem yesterday for the third installment in a series of videos about being a neighbour. As I wrote, I was contemplating the prospect of my Melbourne suburb being the next to go into lockdown. Little did I know that today the whole city would be put back into lockdown. So I’m postingContinue reading “In Our Father’s House”
Werribee Dragonfruit
Strange to be flourishing so far afield;its home is equatorial, tropical,not here, among suburban paddocks,with a straight line down to Antarctica.Yet, while silver birch weepsand quince decks boggy ground with its midwinter yellow,this Malaysian friend greets me withloud, audacious pink,asserting its brilliant right to exist,here, far from home:fruitless, pointless,its only purpose to be,to glory, andContinue reading “Werribee Dragonfruit”
Pruning
Against expectation, thisSpartan clipping makes spring flourish more,this cutting back to bones,to bare knobbly knuckles makesgrowth more abundant when it comes.And so we bearthe naked cruelty of these bare days,knowingagainst all experience,trusting againstbarren winter feeling,enduring againstthe buckling in our bones that wants to fall.
Bone Winter
Reduced to its skeleton, the treeremembers days of birds in bowers,leaves atwitter,branches bent with the weight of fruit,and now bent with the wait of dayswhen flourishing’s a memory.But still the soil nurtures.Still the roots draw deep and branchesin their stasis grow in strength.Still rosehips bud where flowers didand the eagle,grace in his pinions,takes twigs andContinue reading “Bone Winter”
The Long Ordinary
Winter sets in,rubs his damp feet all through the laundry,wipes his everwet hair with each handtowel,breathes ice on my windscreen,cries soggy complaints on my feet.And somewhere we are lostbetween fire and candle, lostin the long, slow ordinary that yawnsin between.Days blink; you miss the momentof daylight, the chanceto dry out and be.Only blessingspans the gapContinue reading “The Long Ordinary”
Holy Mess
Sanctify the compost heapwhere I trudge in dark with the day’s dank scraps.Sanctify the living stench,soil’s second chance,barren fig-tree’s friend.Sanctify the dishes piledon piles around the cluttered sink.Sanctify the time it takesto scrub and dry,to sort and stack.Sanctify numb fingers, iceon windscreen that delays the day,brittle tests when patience is small.Sanctify mess,sanctify time.Sanctify unholy pain;sanctifyContinue reading “Holy Mess”
Pancake Tuesday
Normally a Saturday ritual, it seemedwe should mark this day with pancakes too,a breakfast-table recollection of how feasting and fasting so often cohere. Even, I thought as I mixed egg and milk the night before, even mark the way that air fills the batter like pockets of life, as these very ordinary, meager elements ofContinue reading “Pancake Tuesday”
The Consolations of Writing 