The Swelling Year

Instruments: For Francis of Assisi

~ Matthew Pullar ~ 2 Comments

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, in leper’s dress, welcomes us.
We leave Him with His bell and seek
better jewels and robes.

The channels of our hearts are noise.
Only little buds whisper the wonder
that God came as child.

Christ who died for life’s sake: teach
my miser-heart to be a pauper for love,
breathing into death.

“The Swelling Year” is here…

~ Matthew Pullar ~ 1 Comment

product_thumbnailWell, after seven years of writing and an intense few months of preparation, my book The Swelling Year: Poems for Holy and Ordinary Days is finally available for purchase. I was very excited this week to discover that, as well as being available directly from lulu.com, it can also be ordered at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and even from the Danish store Saxo.com. You can also preview it at Google Books if you want to see what it’s all about. I’m looking at ways of getting it into physical bookstores in Australia too, and I’ll update local readers on this when it happens.

Also, if you happen to be in Melbourne in November, drop by Christ Church Anglican in Brunswick at 2pm on 30 November for the official book launch. There’ll be readings by me, book signings, and live music from some of my very talented friends. I hope to see you there!

Meanwhile, once you’ve read The Swelling Year and want to tell others what you think, perhaps you could take a couple of minutes to review it at your online store of choice.

The Swelling Year 2019

~ Matthew Pullar ~ Leave a comment

swellingyearDear friends,

If you have been hanging around The Consolations of Writing for a while, you might have noticed that I love using the church’s liturgical year as inspiration for my writing.

Well, this interest has been going for some years now – six, in fact – and I’ve decided to put together the best of my poems as a new book, “The Swelling Year: Poems for Holy and Ordinary Days”.

You’ll hear more about it over the next year, at this site, on the Facebook page and at the newly launched website for the book project. Check it out if you haven’t already at theswellingyear.com.

God bless,
Matt.

Ascension Day

~ Matthew Pullar ~ 4 Comments

Well, today is Ascension Day and so this marks the very last poem for my Swelling Year project. When I first set myself the task of writing a poem for every day of the liturgical calendar, it seemed to both me and to others to be biting off substantially more than I could chew. Well, a little over a year later and the project is finished – and what better way to finish than with Jesus ascending to heaven.

Ascension Day

I wonder did they see the clouds
Gather round You as You soared,
Envelop You in vapour-praise
As You rose slowly home?

And did they marvel when they saw
Gravity that day defied
Or did it just confirm for them
What they already knew?

For He, their minds might have reasoned,
Who raised the dead and was once dead –
He who made the bread stretch far
And was Himself the Bread –

Could gather clouds as witnesses
And make the air raise hands,
Could rise as though He made the sky
And was its risen King.

Rise (Saturday in Easter Week)

~ Matthew Pullar ~ Leave a comment
           And He did;
though it breaks our minds,
           He did.
The tomb is empty,
           Peter’s face
white like linen;
           Mary smiles
and hearts are soon on fire; there’s
            no reason why
the broken, wounded,
            disappointed ones
should laugh
            and leap
and heal the sick
            unless
He burst forth from the tomb
            and said,
I am always with you,
            and breathed
His spirit into them;
            unless
some cosmic shift took place
            within
all that we know is true,
            unless
He showed His hands and feet
            and said,
Now be my hands and feet,
            unless
the fiery risen Christ
            met them
in their homes and said
            Don’t fear,
unless He rose
           up from the grave
and conquered death –
           He did.

Stone Hearts (Friday in Easter Week)

~ Matthew Pullar ~ Leave a comment
It seems to cut against all logic,
What we claim that we have seen:
Dead men do not rise, the lame
Do not stand up and walk.
And though we shout and scream a name
It has no power from the tomb;
And yet His name made these bowed legs
Straighten out and move.
 
The Sadducees come, much annoyed,
For they know what all school-kids know:
That bodies once the breath’s expired
Cannot move, do not eat fish.
But in their minds, where they refuse
To listen, lies the knowledge that
If anyone could raise the dead,
He must surely be God.
 
And we know, as we always knew,
That dead men do not rise nor eat
The fish that they sent to our nets,
And know that our dull, stony hearts
Cannot be made to roll away
And send forth hearts of truth and flesh
Unless the one who made the heart
Bursts out forth from the grave.