12 Poets: The project finishes…

12-poets

Well, with March now ending I’m pleased to announce that my 12 Poet’s Project has finished. What a year it has been – beginning with 17th century poet and pastor George Herbert and finishing in the 21st century with former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

To celebrate this year of exploring some of the best Christian poets of the past four hundred years, I have put together a collection of 12 highlights of the year: one poem for each month. You can access it here, via the 12 Poets Project page. You can also look back over all 48 poems, all linked from this page.

I’d love to know what the highlights have been for all of you. It’s certainly been wonderful delving into the riches of Christian poetry and seeing the ways that these 12 quite distinctive poets have given voice to their faith and viewed the world through the wonderful, nuanced prism it provides. I look forward to announcing my next writing project, due to be unveiled after Easter. In the meantime, God bless you all in this Lent season.

Catechism 13

Detail from Jan Wijnants, "Parable of the Good Samaritan"
Detail from Jan Wijnants, “Parable of the Good Samaritan”

Can anyone keep the law of God perfectly?

Since the fall, no mere human has been able to keep the law of God perfectly, but consistently breaks it in thought, word, and deed.

(New City Catechism)

 

All this being said –

the neighbour languishes

where thieves

and Levites have left him.

 

The Samaritan shames

the priests, the sons of David.

Yet even his heart

turns the wrong way to worship.

 

The eyes of righteousness

scan all of earth’s children.

The straightest human heart

is too crooked to reach heaven.

 

Jericho’s road, ridden

with bumps and threats

takes the best among us

and casts us to its side.

 

But look: one comes

like a Son of Man.

He makes only level paths

and follows with ready feet…

Lent 25: Saturday of Third Week

Yet we close
our hearts to the man
who cuts us off driving
or sits in our seat.

And we close up the access
and passage to remorse
when the sins of our fathers
still fester in minds:

the servant who casts
his debtor into
the prison from which
he too had been freed.

Father, forgive.
Our hearts bear our grievances,
medals of pride
and stones built inside.

Jesus, reteach
our grudge-bearing fists
to open themselves
in Your jubilee.

Lent 24: Friday of Third Week

Our minds cannot contain
something so small, so
microscopic, yet
Universe sustained within –

a mustard seed
which sees the mountain,
sees despair beneath its foot
and says to it, Now move.

O God. The mountain blocks our view.
The heights have dizzied;
the depths distress.
Open your seed within.

Lent 23: Thursday of Third Week

Son of David, immortal king, why –
Shoot from stump of Jesse, how –
Anointed one, long-promised ruler –

Where is victory? Where your crown?

Losing life to save it, why –
Eyes bent towards the grave, what for –
Die that life may glorious reign –

Our minds cannot contain

Søren (After Rowan Williams’ “Rublev”)

http://philosophynow.org
http://philosophynow.org

The Messiah came one day, tattered in Adam’s rags,
ragged and anxious from the moment of sin,
sick nearly to death.

I said, My father has betrayed you
and I have chased dead beauty.
Sit ragged with me by my hearth.

I too wear scars: do you know them?
These the contours that choice has worn
and the schisms of my youth.

Sit, Christ said, eternally. My hands have scars to hold.
Come, throw past curses into iceworn fields;
now is the moment of eternal breath.

See “Rublev” by Rowan Williams here.

Lent 22: Wednesday of Third Week

Son of David:
the children drop their scraps to the ground;
the feast passes by, unnoticed.

Son of David:
faith bursts out from unexpected ground.
Where are those with faith of a child?

Son of David, I
am needy. Hear the cry of dogs
waiting at the children’s side.

Son of David:
stretch out Your sovereign arm
to take in the lost sheep, the dogs.

Like Eagles

Wing-of-Bird

First   
the twinge of bone:
         feathers attach
                   painful, yet
  somehow transcending
                   ground and
the now-ness of temporal agony.
 
Skeletal complexities fan – now in, now
 
out, now soar: old age flaps, youth,
                  renewed, soars
    to cloud, to wind, to heights
                   of grace floating
           on broken,
fledgling, resurrected
wings.