Category Archives: The Swelling Year

(After The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine) The historical St. Dunstan will benefit us if we study his career with an impartial love of right, and hatred of wrong, wheresoever found. But the legendary St. Dunstan? He and such as he will do us no good if, overlooking the grave lesson of self-conquest andContinue reading “The Taper, the Tongs, the Devil and Saint Dunstan”

On Sundays, I base my poems on the set readings for the day in the Anglican Liturgical calendar. One of today’s readings is Psalm 98, a very joyful psalm and one that can, perhaps, be hard to say with all integrity when not joyful oneself. Here is my approach to the problem. I hope, asContinue reading “Broken Praise (Sixth Sunday of Easter)”

(This poem comes with a thank-you to my friend Bei-En for providing the story about Julian shaking her fist at God.) All shall be well, she said, and all Manner of thing shall be well. And yet A story – perhaps apocryphal – Tells of one glum day, when she Went out upon a mountainContinue reading “Dame Juliana and the Mule (For Julian of Norwich)”

Go to the south of the road where In the wilderness sits one who Has seen his nation’s full wealth, Held in his hands the treasury key, Has borne the trust, the security Of Candace, his queen. Go to where he sits, treasure locked In between his hands. Hear him Ask, beg, plead to haveContinue reading “The Treasures of Candace (Fifth Sunday of Easter)”

The world will know enough about us, if it know this much: and even if the world know it not, it suffices so long as God knows it. (Christina Rossetti, Time Flies: A Reading Diary) In Portugal a statue stands Where with one hand he holds a flame And with the other he lifts highContinue reading “The Least to the Greatest (For Saint James the Lesser)”

He wrestled with the Emperors; His pillar stood firm, unshaking, While all around the edifice Quaked and quivered, prone to fall. The world threshed about like a serpent, Enthralling the Bride in its grip, And charmed bishops and kings with Its every sleek and fork-tongued word. And as the wand’ring minstrel sang Songs of theContinue reading “Contra Mundum (For Athanasius of Alexandria)”

Show us the Father, you pled, And that will be enough for us. He looked into your eyes and, with All the gathering frustration of the teacher Who day after day is ignored, who teaches Quadratic equations that they be forgotten, Beats out iambic pentameters that They be lost in the drumming numbness of heads,Continue reading “Enough (For the Feast of St Philip the Apostle)”

Oh, wretched man, the darkness of self-love does not let thee know this truth. For didst thou know it, thou wouldst choose any pain rather than guide thy life in this way; thou wouldst give thee to loving and desiring Him who Is; thou wouldst enjoy His truth in firmness, and wouldst not move aboutContinue reading “The Broken Mystic (For the Feast of Catherine of Siena)”

The hired hand once saw the wolf That came upon the fold of sheep And, hitching up his garments, fled Far away from the looming wolf And hid himself safe in the woods. The sheep stood waiting, helplessly, And bleated to the silent woods, The cold indifference of the night. The shepherd in another foldContinue reading “The Shepherd, the Wolf and the Hired Hand (Fourth Sunday of Easter)”