Today the church remembers St Francis of Assisi, so here is a sneak peek at a new poem I wrote based on his life and ethos for The Swelling Year. Instruments (For Francis of Assisi) All our instruments tend to dischord. We turn away from harmony in search of our own tunes. Brother Jesus, inContinue reading “Instruments: For Francis of Assisi”
Category Archives: Poetry
“Consolation” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I don’t normally share other people’s work here but I read this gem this morning and it was so precious – especially the ending – that I thought I had to post it. Consolation – Elizabeth Barrett Browning All are not taken; there are left behind Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring And make theContinue reading ““Consolation” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning”
Botany for Children
The touseled children have their own way with trees, their own classification… (Chris Wallace-Crabbe, “Timber”) Some are named for likeness to familiar things: the lemon tree in Nanna’s garden becomes a prototype for all other trees in all other gardens. And some are named by analogy or comparison: big tree, little tree, special tree; andContinue reading “Botany for Children”
Memento Mori: After Chris Wallace-Crabbe
And Adam, seeing that immortality had not clothed him but left his glory naked, felt in his body the future ache of all who would toil and moil their mortal days, and taking Eve’s hand, he hid their rude-awakened flesh in the quiet of a deceitful glade while the immortal searched to clothe them andContinue reading “Memento Mori: After Chris Wallace-Crabbe”
Bloom
Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. (Psalm 126:5) You’ll be glad to hear your tree is sprouting leaves and in the midst of blossom, tiny fruit. Your little brother’s learning all the names for almond, flowering gum and bottlebrush; yet you by now will know far more than this. TheContinue reading “Bloom”
Black Dog Barking
Day upon day is a rising struggle, a bark in the dark and a claw at the leash. If you see me blackdoglike with my paws scratching frantic, then take my dull aching in hand til I’m still.
My own garden I have neglected
Gather your spiritual bouquet… (Francis de Sales) Plenteous winter rain left the backyard a grassy forest where mallow and clover ran riot and kikuyu spread its runners wide. The rhizomatic tangle, lush and unbeatable, enfolded in itself a toddler’s trucks, a sandpit shovel, a bouncy ball, a peg, and I, bent on order yet atContinue reading “My own garden I have neglected”
The first day of spring
began with honeysuckle and clover, the constants of the winter yet rendered more redolent by the scents of September and a bee buzzing about a flowering cactus and ended with a downpour that sent me rushing to the clothesline while my son stood in his raincoat and listened to the rain with all things –Continue reading “The first day of spring”
Noah’s Ark: For Eli
I. Delighted by animals, God and rain, my son finds kinship in Noah’s ark, commentating the story as I leaf through his Bible: “Rain! Giraffe. Boat. Noah. Wet. Monkeys!” How to convey what a rainbow’s about, or how I long for him and his brothers to be kept safe in the ark as the floodContinue reading “Noah’s Ark: For Eli”
Testimony of Earth
For this demon who harms men and corrupts them is particularly anxious that his servants not gaze up to heaven but instead that they be bent over to the earth and make bricks inside themselves from clay. (Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses) At the moment of exhaling, he sanctified the clay he shapedContinue reading “Testimony of Earth”
The Consolations of Writing 