Words to bridge the gap between faith and life…
Keilor-bound at the wheel,
a man plucks his middle brow over the hill.
Trucks speak in whistling brakes;
cars speak in blinkers;
billboards speak in covered-up breaths
and we, doubting ourselves, tremble forth.
Across gorges and bridges, organ-pipes hum
in the silent chorale of a wasted commute.
Gold glints through gum-trees;
grace glints in mirrors.
Wake up –
white, blue and dog collar carry this same weight
and glory hangs latent over the day.
White though simple carries every colour.
Glory – small word – is manifold.
Break apart light and find prismatic wonder.
None of this has words.
What then? What sounds can be made to stir hearts?
The Word – singular yet many pleats,
Many rooms – beams and breathes from beginning.
How can we reveal?
We cannot. Only delight. The revealing is done
So revel, marvel. Stand back in amaze.
No tweet. In an instant, a gram of this can be lost
Yet Glory’s weight compels.
Throw off light and momentary. Minds explode with triune truth.
Saying is simple; sound has many ripples.
Light waves and darts and ruins categories.
Your first and only crime was to ignore true Glory.
Stop. Be blown away.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote…
(Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales)
Finally
the clothes are dry,
the air is dry,
the leaves fall in their way.
Finally
April ends with such crispness
and we emerge,
knowledge of winter on the edges of skin
yet our bodies relieved from this dampness.
Follow, southern pilgrim.
The road leads to shivers, then flowers, then shivers.
Yet there will be a season
for laundry drying
and coffees on the lawn,
and a season when all the pilgrims of Canterbury
and Melbourne will dance
in the unendingness of sun.
Clouds drift; distant, the birds sing.
The courtyard sunk in silence sits.
Somewhere cars continue the day,
and floating in the distance thoughts
of mateship dearly bought, and peace
woven where no need for war
had driven us to foreign shores,
repeat: We shall remember them.
This has no glory, only silence.
And in the silence fit
a thousand thoughts and prayers,
a million unremembered things,
a cove too far away.
At the going down of the sun – remember.
Remember the dawn and the children who lied,
the stories we told to justify.
Remember the lines that we drew in soil,
and the poppies in fields, dancing peace.
Lest we forget: a hundred years is short enough
and long enough to twist and deny.
The silence ends. Too soon the bugle calls the flag’s ascent.
Some twist their heads. Some do not know.
Let the children come and hear
the trumpet of no retreat.
Is baptism with water the washing away of sin itself?
No, only the blood of Christ and the renewal of the Holy Spirit can cleanse us from sin.
(New City Catechism)
God, no water is enough.
Stains worsen when washed deeper in;
this is the deepest, from Adam to now.
Only blood
can wash away blood;
only pure Breath can restore breath.
Nothing giving; the remedy hurts worse than the ill.
Yet grace gives us this:
gentle water as symbol,
another’s death as the price, impossible signed
in this simplest plunge,
the stain
taken right back to the source.
Written Easter Sunday in Pyengana, Tasmania
Dedicated to the people of Break O’Day Parish, St Helens
Drink from the brook. The day sparkles the hills in their joy.
Look to the mountains: there comes your help.
Springing forth from caves with rolled-away stones
breaks the day, breaks the day.
Singing in haze, this resurrection joy
breaks away the old death;
drink the life.
(Written on Holy Saturday in Bicheno, Tasmania)
The oath must still hold true yet waiting dries expectation;
the dew of your youth evaporates in the tomb.
Now: what the LORD said to David’s Lord is unchanged,
but the rods of foes seem the triumphant ones today.
Only Pilate’s wife regrets the washing of hands; only women weep.
Only in secret do we take your body to its tomb.
In the morning, with spices and sorrow we will greet
your right hand and your nail-torn feet,
with your king’s footstool too heavy to roll away,
and something like morning tackling deadened hearts.
Drink by the brook as you wait, if you can;
silence might hold some promise in this night of nights.
Come dream.
Hold tight
that I will not hold tight
fists clenched, to world.
when all its passing joys toy.
Hold tight that I may tie
my heart to Yours. When sight
and touch fail me, hold
my nothing in Your everything.
More than enough, more
than all joy, all glory –
nakedness transfigured,
brightness out of shame.
What warmth I hide in will soon grow cold.
All Peter’s false fires, Adam’s cloak of leaves,
will burn out, fade, and leave nakedness in ash.
Clothe me. My shame is always before me.
Nothing hides from Your sight
what should be white, yet’s stained like blood.
O God. I stand –
naked, dust.
You are enough. You are enough.
Praise Him that all our rags have failed:
more longing then for Heaven’s clothes.
And praise Him too that faces fall
so that we seek His more.
Enough that we now dimly see,
and in ourselves feel death’s sentence.
Enough that we have glimpsed this sight
and die to know its light.
The Consolations of Writing 