Purpose

Before the fact,
Before the light,
Before the waters and their domes,
 
Before the dust,
Before the breath,
Before the rib, before the sleep,
 
Before the names,
Before the planting,
Before the harvest and the fruits,
 
Before the notion,
Before the garden,
Before the apple and the tree,
 
Before the leaves,
Before the crushing,
Before the biting of the heel,
 
Before the sword,
Before the cherub,
Before the roaring of the seas,
 
Before the dove,
Before the olive,
Before the bow turned up at me,
 
Before the child,
Before the temple,
Before the palm-leaves and the tree,
 
Before the skull,
Before the nails,
Before the breaking of the tomb,
 
Before the rise,
Before the many,
Before the Body and the feet,
 
Before the fall and rise of many,
Before the rift, before the mercy,
Before the Law, before the language,
 
Before it all – the plan.

Dimensions

How wide –
Encompassing the earth’s vast circle
scarred yet shining, reaching further
than these nails, from east to west,
wider that the earth’s whole orbit,
wider than the girth of sun,
than solar systems, galaxies –
 
How long –
Spanning further than the years,
the length of time, the age of sun,
longer than the distance from
His perfect light to our darkness,
no length too far, no distance out
of His love’s stride towards us –
 
How high –
From deepest depths to heaven’s heights,
further than the sky can tell,
than telescope can reach or gaze,
than every leap of intellect,
higher than the astronaut,
than gravity-defying leaps,
higher than our fears can rise,
than Helium, than Mercury –
 
How deep –
Plumbing the twilight zone, abyss,
the land of untold darkness where
our heavy spirits all must sink,
deeper than the weighty grave,
the downwards pull of everything,
deeper than our eyes can fathom,
deeper than the spear can pierce,
than apple-fall, than three-day’s-tomb,
deeper than proud Adam fell,
deeper than our sin.
 
To know this love –
Surpassing all
the heights, the depths, the width, the length,
of all our finest knowledge, and
filling every cavity,
consuming all our entropy,
every way we look and fall –
love beyond it all.

12 Poets #1: Justification (After George Herbert’s “Redemption”)

George Herbert wrote around four hundred years ago, but his poetry is still powerfully immediate today. Perhaps it’s the sometimes shocking honesty of his work, perhaps the incredible confidence with which he moves between poetic forms and makes them altogether his own. This is particularly apparent in the handful of sonnets that he wrote. Herbert rarely wrote sonnets, but when he did they were powerful – so powerful that you often forgot you were even reading a sonnet.

Take “Redemption”, for example, one of my personal favourites. Breaking with a tradition that sees sonnets often being addresses to a beloved or an exposition of a theme, this sonnet is a story and one with an undeniable bite to it at the end. I have used “Redemption” as the starting point for a new poem which I have called “Justification”. Like Herbert’s poem, it tells a story which illustrates a theological concept. I have tried to stick as closely as possible to Herbert’s form without recycling his ideas. Here are both poems for you to read.

Justification
 
Tired out from night on night awake,
       Hurling back and forth these arguments,
       Revising who said this, made that mistake,
My head worn out, my body weak and dense,
I set before you my best-argued case,
       My final, full summation of the facts.
       The spleen I vented then before your face
Fell in the night, the thudding of an axe.
I turned to you, expecting angry flame,
       An answer thick with all your wounded pride;
       Instead I saw blood flowing from your side.
You smiled in the silence of my shame.
       All mine is yours, whispered your last heart beat;
       You took my words and nailed them through your feet.
 
George Herbert – Redemption
 
Having been tenant long to a rich lord,
    Not thriving, I resolvèd to be bold,
    And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old.
In heaven at his manor I him sought;
    They told me there that he was lately gone
    About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possessiòn.
I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,
    Sought him accordingly in great resorts;
    In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts;
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
    Of thieves and murderers; there I him espied,
    Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

 

The year of apprenticeship begins

Thanks to those of you who responded to my post about my new poetry project – a year of studying and learning from 12 of the best Christian poets, one a month, four poems from each. I’ve received some great suggestions and have also come across some wonderful poets myself as I’ve been searching for the right people to look at. One of the joys of the project already has been seeing that there’s simply too many great Christian poets out there. Sorry to those of you who’ve made suggestions which I won’t be able to include – picking just twelve has been quite a challenge!

Of course, the list might change, so I’m going to reveal each poet as we move through the list rather than announcing the full list now. It’s a great list, though, and I’m really excited to be looking at all of them. It’s also interesting to note some trends which have developed, quite unknowingly, in the list. Most are Catholic or Anglican. A lot of them are Welsh! And, unsurprisingly perhaps, very few of them are my countrymen or women – Australian. I’ll look at the poets in chronological order, so that means that this month we’re going to be starting way back in the seventeenth century, with Welsh-born Anglican minister and poet George Herbert. I can’t wait!

Guarantor

           There is no guarantee
                        Within me
Of righteousness or future glory,
                       No guarantee
           Of how the story
Will resolve. Yet in You in see,
 
           Only in Your pure blood,
                        O my God,
Does the story have its certainty,
                        Its final good
            And this perfect plea:
Sins pardoned, frailty understood.

The Answer

I am between writing projects at the moment, my liturgical poems on hold for a month until the last day in the calendar that I have yet to write about – Ascension Day at the start of May – and being yet to begin my Christian poets project (which you can expect to see me begin this week). So, in the mean-time, here is another one of the poems I am writing for my memoir project on the Psalms. This one is loosely based on a section of Psalm 119 – the beautiful passage in verses 41-48. It has been a very comforting passage through some dark times in my life, so here is a poem which expresses some of what it means to me.

The Answer
 
The taunter has his night-time lies
That speak of depths of dark in me
Which I can only vaguely know
Yet sound as nails at night.
 
And in the day-time he has ways
To catch me with my thoughts, alone,
Amidst the crowd or in my head,
The stillness of deep dread.
 
And in all my vast stores of words
And arguments I have none left
To say that he does not know me,
That what he says is lies.
 
For when I answer, thoughts like vines
Arise and tangle me in me,
And when the word of truth is near
The vines snatch it away.
 
So only this can I reply:
That there is love, unfailing, rich,
And promises of salvation
Surer than my fears.
 
When it comes, and it is near,
Then I shall answer him who taunts
And will hold firmly to the word
Which holds me in its plans.

Rise (Saturday in Easter Week)

           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)

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.

Author of Life (Thursday in Easter Week)

“It’s true: the Author of life lay dead,
            Lay three days inside death’s tomb,
The Righteous and the Holy One
            Made Himself an offering to
Ignorant, unrighteous men
            Who knew not what they did.
 
It’s true, for we are witnesses;
            We saw Him breathe and saw Him die
And saw Him rise again and eat
            Fish and bread among us, He
Who made the fish swim, made grain grow
            And lay dead on a tree.
 
Look: the one who makes bones live
            And opens blinded eyes has made
The lame man walk along with us,
            And you too must receive
The gift of faith, the gift of life,
            The gift of utter joy.”
 
The lame man clinging onto them
            Saw the stares of men who knew
Everything yet nothing too.
            “Times of refreshing may come to you,”
Peter said, the tail’s sting
            Hanging in the wind:
 
For everything was done for them
            And nothing they could give,
Every debt was paid and all
            Faith was theirs to take,
Yet some there were who still would not
           Die that they might live.

Breaking Bread, Mending Bones (Wednesday in Easter Week)

We had seen him do the same as this –
men on mats, lame from their birth,
           men born blind,
                      women who bled,
rubbing mud into their eyes,
            ordering their legs,
                      “Now walk!”
 
And always we saw this response:
            the broken ones arising,
                                            healed,
the order of their bones arranged
           to be now as it should,
                                                       that way
           he had of taking atoms and
                       changing their whole course.
 
And yet we had not understood,
            until we saw Him breaking bread –
                        an action so domestic,
                                                            yet
                        unexpected, being dead,
            and then, I think, we understood,
                        how every promise of the Word
                        was somehow in His nail-scarred hands
            so bodies must respond to Him
                        as clay in potters’ hands.
 
And slowly there dawned in our minds
            the knowledge that just as He said
                        “Get up and walk”, he could too say
            “Your sins are now forgiven”, and
                                 “Arise now from the grave.”