Category Archives: Poetry

My happiness lies at Wisdom’s feet; She covers me with what she weaves; She plants her trees where they will flourish And in her garden I flourish too. My happiness is hidden from The way of fools who will uproot The joy and peace of those who sit Within their fading, foolish throne. My happinessContinue reading “Beatus (Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost)”

He found me sitting at my booth, My counterfeit, faux-Roman throne, Where I hoarded wealth and guilt And bought my people’s shame. He found me sitting at my booth And said to me, “Rise; follow me”, Without equivocation, no Question in his voice. They saw him at the table with me And with other sinnersContinue reading “Found (For St Matthew, Apostle and Martyr)”

Let this be said of the one who died, The bishop whose body they found afloat On a palm fibre mat and a palm branch in hand; Let this be said: that he lived as he died, Life given up, at the mercy of waves, Sailing where God’s current-love took him. Let this be said:Continue reading “Palm Branches (For John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia)”

Great expectations brought him here But disappointment welcomed him, And when the wealth across the seas Did not extend into his hand He put them to good work, to build A chapel made of thatch. And slowly, from his backyard’s soil, That church of thatch soon stood tall, Though humble, and opened its doors ToContinue reading “The Thatch Chapel (For John Ramsden Wollaston)”

Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honor. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because ofContinue reading “The Feather (For Hildegard of Bingen)”

A name encased in mystery; A hero fading from the light; A life with no-one taking notes; A set of tales with hazy truths; A legacy that supercedes The details of names, concrete dates; A light within translucent source; A see that caught some northern souls; A truth that spread beyond the wall; A kindledContinue reading “The Flame (For Ninian of Galloway)”

She cries – Out in the street she cries, Wandering the streets in search Of any who will hear. To those rudderless ships she cries, To horses without bits to guide them, To foolish ones led by their tongues, She cries. Come to me, she cries, with food Enough for every clamouring soul; Come toContinue reading “She Cries in the Street (Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost)”

If we met one day, resting beneath some eucalypt, taking noonday shelter, breaking bread and sharing peace, would we, I wonder, look each other in the eye and see kinship’s glint, the marks of grace, the familiar signs of those bought with the same price? We may have fought; you clashed, I know, with onesContinue reading “Many and One (For John Oliver Feetham, Bishop and Bush Brother)”

This my only boast – two arms like a tree held out with widest love whose depth and breadth I cannot fathom, can but rest in- side.

When the ones who had fled emerged from their caves, the fire died down, the Emperor’s rod no longer raised, from some they received mercy, from others the shame of the lapsed, all the judgment accorded to those who denied the name of the Lord for fear of the sword. Cyprian stood as one ofContinue reading “The Apostate’s Mercy (For Cyprian of Carthage, Bishop and Martyr)”