I was not ready: You came when I was sleeping, At my least expected midnight. Reality shook - this veil we call "The way things are"; angels sang And shepherds danced, but I - Exhausted by normality - Dozed while, in a baby's cry, Four hundred years of silence found Their end-point in this night.
Jacaranda
Uncommonly strong, it stays purple,
while elsewhere the street is lined
with debris from seasons
which the trees soon forgot.
Confused fig-leaves turn golden,
drop to the ground as rain gushes gutters
and sunscreen, umbrellas,
opposites, swap in uncertain hands –
yet lilac and stoic at the end of my street
Jacaranda declares it is summer.
Uncertainty (After Luci Shaw’s “The Annunciatory Angel”)
As we begin the season of Advent, I thought it would be fitting to begin with some Advent-themed poems. The first is based on Luci Shaw’s “The Annunciatory Angel”, which itself is a response to Fra Angelico’s painting “The Annunciation”. Though inspired by Shaw’s poem, I have gone back to the original painting and written my own response to it. I hope that it can help you also to focus on the amazing Christmas story this Advent.
Uncertainty (After “The Annunciatory Angel”) Bent forwards, finger to lips as though A secret is about to be told, Crested with gold, saurian wings, more Bone-like than feathered, halo at the side, Cone-of-silence-like, to keep the secret: The angel whispers, And Mary waits, Medieval fringe her veil, Hands clasped to chest – does she cradle herself Or cover her breasts? Blue modesty drapes itself Around her waist. Wooden floorboards must feel The shake, the suppressed tremble As the Angel’s pursed lips disclose a truth Shocking to the ears, to the senses, to logic, Then as much as now. And, wandering beneath the stars, At stage right, three figures, one haloed, the others not, Descending a hill towards – something? Towards what? Fra Angelico does not show, The only light a glow about The Angel’s feet and face, and Mary, Glowing in uncertainty, the prospect Of scared obedience.
With reverent fear
In this you greatly rejoice, though for now
Your life flits by, empty at times, sometimes glad.
And in these days, though you furrow your brow,
The breeze on your face can still lift up the sad,
And music is sweet, and the grace that is seen
Falls likewise on righteous, unrighteous,
Both blesses the generous, blesses the mean,
Gives food and gives sun to shine on us.
Despise not the day of the tenderest things:
In each blessing, rejoice; each joy, savour.
Yet know that one day, when the Son of Dawn sings,
All your earthly joys then will be vapour.
So live out your days now in reverent fear,
Rejoicing in Him till the new day appear.
1 Nomination and 2 Nominees
Well, this has been a big year for me in my writing. One of the biggest blessings of the year has been seeing my readership grow and discovering some wonderful, like-minded bloggers who have helped make this feel more like a community project than just one guy tapping away at his computer. To everyone who regularly checks in here and encourages me, thanks so much. It means a lot to me.
I’d also like to thank Tony Roberts of awaywithwordsblog.com for his very kind gesture nominating me for a Blog-of-the-Year award. In an orderly manner befitting the blogosphere, the conditions for accepting the award are as follows:
1-Select the blog(s) you think deserve the Blog Of The Year 2013 Award.
2-Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen- there are no minimum or maximum number of blogs required- and ‘present’ the blog(s) with their award.
3-Let the blog(s) that you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the instructions with them- (please don’t alter the instructions or the badges!)
4-Come over and say hello to the originator of the Blog Of The Year 2013 Award via this link :http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/blog-awards-2-/blog-of-the-year-2013-award/
5-You can now also join the Blog Of The Year Award Facebook Page. Click the link here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BlogoftheYear
Share your blog posts with an even wider audience.
6-And as a winner of the award- please add a link back to the blog that presented you with this award-and then proudly display the award on your blog- and start collecting stars!
Firstly, I would like to nominate two blogs for this award. I must admit that my blog reading is not as wide as it should be, but there are two blogs in particular which have blessed me greatly this year. The first is my nominating blog, awaywithwordsblog.com, a wonderful place for finding “delight in disorder” – a wide-reaching, eloquent excursion into the tougher matters of faith and the beauty found therein. The second blog is A Devoted Life: Practical Daily Devotions for the Real World. Every time I go there, I find wonderfully expressed reflections on faith which are simultaneously down-to-earth and profound – no small feat. To both of these bloggers, thank you for blessing me and others with your words!
12 Poets: Goodbye and Hello
Well, on this final day of November it’s time to say goodbye to Denise Levertov, the lovely Anglo-American poet that we have been exploring this month. In lieu of an essay on her work, here is a link to the last interview she gave which I think gives a better insight into her work than anything I could write in a hurry.
And, with December frighteningly around the corner, it’s time to unveil the next poet: Luci Shaw, a wonderful poet who now work as Writer in Residence at Regent College, Vancouver. I’m looking forward to looking at her work, particularly because contemporary Evangelical Christian poets are few and far between. I trust that her work will be a nice way to see in this Advent season ahead of us.
Pass By In Safety
The earth is full of snares and lies, My child, my child, my fragile child, With many dreams that take your eyes – My child, my child, be true. The path is wide, the road feels smooth, My child, my child, my trusting child, Yet easy roads evade the truth – My child, my child, be wise. The Devil wears a friend’s disguise, My child, my child, unknowing child, And sweetly sings as your soul dies; My child, he will trap you. But if, my child, you take refuge, In me, my child, beloved child, From subtlest snare to swift deluge, You will pass safely by.
Guilt (After Denise Levertov’s “Adam’s Complaint”)
With November nearly over, it’s time for my final tribute to the poetry of Denise Levertov. This one is inspired by her simple but stark masterpiece, “Adam’s Complaint“, one of Levertov’s many creative entries into the inner workings of Biblical narratives. My poem looks at the same story from a slightly different angle.
Guilt (After “Adam’s Complaint”) The vilest ruse lay in the lie that knowledge always leads to wisdom: as though all it took was to eat and know and then be somehow as gods. Instead, we found our naked selves hiding in broad daylight, no clothing but wisdom which, always vowing, always taking, ate us as we ate, learning through the futile past that fruit, though pleasing to the eye, is not always food.
Even So, Even So (After Denise Levertov’s “Suspended”)
When I first read Denise Levertov’s “Suspended”, it amazed me with the perfect way it blended the starkness of life with the delicate beauty of grace. You can read her poem here, in a wonderful post from CPX of their favourite religious poems, and here is my own response to Levertov.
Even So, Even So (After “Suspended”) No sense can receive the sense Of what it is that catches me; You sing of joy, joy, in your heart And I, sometimes, can know that joy, and yet It is not clapping which sustains. Hands that have no atoms hold me; Even so, even so, in their infinite, silent substance they Keep my frail floating self from All these chasms that it seeks.
The Case Against the Gods: C.S. Lewis’ Grief and Complaint
Well, today is the 50th anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis, one of my favourite authors. To commemorate the man and his body of work, here is an essay I have written about him – part of a larger book I am writing on the role of emotional suffering in the lives of significant Christian writers. I hope that this essay can help open up for you aspects of Lewis’ life and work which I have found particularly helpful in my own life and writing.
The Consolations of Writing 