Tag: Poetry

Here I sit in a café, reading poetry. I love the sense of being surrounded, yet in my own bubble. It can be dangerous though, as these poems can strip you bare, make you cry… Several times I find myself gulping down obvious shows of emotion. Perhaps I should just let it all out, but I am British after all, and I would not want a public intervention.

I came across this little poem by Matt Rees. It could be applied to forest glades, or to this café. It might even be used to described temples. Or human souls.

Holy Moses, by Matt Rees

"Take off your shoes"
the Lord told Moses
"The land on which you stand is Holy."
So Moses dutifully obeyed.
Holiness, it seems, requires bare skin to earth.

But if we abandoned our shoes
whenever we encountered holy ground
all shoemakers everywhere
would be penniless.

Today, I pull another Proost book off my bookshelf—this time by Chris Fosten.

Chris had been writing poems on Post-It notes as a simple daily exercise, then posting them on social media. These poems were extraordinary—spry, intelligent and deceptively simple, both because of the format, but also in the way that poems bring their multiple meanings and take you on a journey. In the end, we were able to gather some of the poems into this lovely book.

Here is Chris’s poem, ‘Bursting light’.

Bursting Light, by Chris Fosten

Squally, pushing rain
ushers into the trees
and we stop to watch.

Seeing the cloud swirl
across the landscape
rocking trees in its wake

Is when I see it:
a copse - sparse, thin
bathed in sunlight

This is ground zero of the cataclysmic global event known as the Industrial Revolution—the first ‘factory’, on the river Derwent, with its convenient reliable flow. It is now the Museum Of Making in Derby town centre. It is a place of wonders—ones we have made for ourselves, our of our own desperate rush for more, for better.

Forgive my self indulgence, but here is one of my poems which came to mind as we visited yesterday. I may have shared it before, but it is a poem that I feel like I am carrying just now. Or perhaps it carries me.

Human Races, by Chris Goan

The upright ape ascends from knapped flint to
Silicon chip. He scratches sonnets in split slate and
Solves problems (almost) as fast as he makes them.
Alchemy promises gold, but instead it turns the
Lights on, lighting a road ahead called Progress.

There is nothing new under the sun; the circle is still
Unbroken. Empires rise whilst others fall; ours was
Not the first at all. It turns out that our times were never
Linear (just oscillation) and that for every page of
Knowledge gained, another is forgotten.

But what are we, if not whisps of the same Spirit?
We carry in us the same am-ness as all things that ever were,
Hidden under thin skin and hubris, waiting for those moments
Beneath stars or trees or tenderness when we remember;
It is all about connection.

Today, another poem from the first Proost Poetry collection, this one from Janice Laidlaw.

We have an on-going conversation within Proost about the nature of poetry, as a spiritual practice (accidental or deliberate) or a form of prayer, or a way to explore doubt, anger or protest. This poem does something much more tender—it invites us in.

God Song, by Janice Laidlaw

I am the warp and weft of life
I am the silken dart that furrows
The silver-gold thread that gently chafes
The knot between emptiness and fullness
The crevice that hungrily waits and gapes

I am the fall of soft silent wool
the spool that intimately shaves
a harness from the hood -
forming ever more beautiful graves
from the click and clack of warm wood

Nestle to me:
Breathe with my breath
sink into my velvet bed
and become crushed and cleaving with love

Today, aoother poem from Cameron Preece. This one explores lent from a cosmic perspective.

A Divine Embrace, by Cameron Preece

Imagine hands, worn by the world’s creation,
Cracks in them, deep enough to envelope time itself,
Fingerprints, recognizable only on the land on which you stand,

And those you greet—even yourself—marked
With grooves older than time,

Imagine gaping wounds within wrists,
Created by tyrants that look just like you,
But despite excruciata,
An arm—extended in embrace?

And what of the arms that flung stars into space,
What is it to be enwrapped gently within them?
Imagine the warmth felt
Pressed against your chest,
A love so amazing, so divine,
That songs were sung by humankind
—A gesture of thanks
From a guilty people,

But we know forgiveness is only really possible

From the ones most hurt

Today, I pulled a book formerly published by Proost by Cheryl Lawrie. Back then, she was working in prisons, and this book is a gem, full of lovely poetry and liturgy, often from meditation spaces and installations that Cheryl had been part of curating. I loved this book, and we used parts of it within our own community. I also remember Cheryl fondly for her kindness as she edited my own poetry collection, ‘Listing’.

This book contains some liturgies for lent, and I am going to recreate a couple of them here. They tell another story of the innovation around small group spiritual practice that was being recorded and spread through Proost. I remember fondly how simple rituals could carry such profound depth. Cheryl’s work is a perfect example of this.

Some nails are placed on a table along with a piece of wood and a hammer

Jesus hung on the cross in the company of sinners.

In the eyes of people who wanted him to die, he was a sinner. He spoke the truth about love, relationships, the church, the world, God… and people weren’t willing to hear it.

Sometimes we’re not either.

Take a nail and hold it in your hand. Think of a truth about God, pointed to by Jesus, which you find most difficult to hear and believe.

Is it that you are loved completely?

Is it that others are loved completely too?

What is it for you?

Take a nail and hammer it into the wood.

A length of white cloth that can be easily ripped

When the women went to the garden on the Sunday morning to anoint Jesus’ body, they discovered that he wasn’t in the tomb. He wasn’t where they thought he would be.

Resurrection rarely happens as we would expect.

New life isn’t the same old life recreated. It’s new life.

Rip some of the white fabric and take it with you.

One more poem from the first Proost Poetry collection, ‘Learning to Love’. This one is by Paul Grant, whom I have never met, but love his writing. This one does that wonderful thing of making the ordinary transcendent. Forgive me that it look backwards into the winter, but it is worth the regression.

Prodigal, by Paul Grant

And morning comes in an undertakers coat
A blackbird's bright notes
Tap December's blindness.

The harlequin tablecloth is a map of unrest:
A fagged ashtray piles north
And south's ruby sediment stains a glass,
West is a drained bottle of port,
East keeps vigil over black leather texts.

I am pressed flowers
Between a skim of days
Sick with the pottage of tried and tired happiness.

Outside
A silver bloom
Of glitter frost
Is sharp and hard as holiness.

I climb the back road
To find you in the dark.

Gravestones. Stillness.
Snow underfoot.
The depth of presence 
Revealed
And sovereign silence stirs
In a heart
Hushed by beauty
Born, to bring us home.

Today is the first day of Spring. It feels wide open with possibilities, despite all that we know or fear. Above is a picture of our kitchen table, full of sketches and designs for illustrations to to a book that Michaela is working on. I love the mess of it all – in the background is a ceramic bird sculpture she made that had such character that it needed a story…

I looked for a poem that somehow captured what this scene brings to me. This looking is in itself a pleasure—digging deep into the old Proost poetry collections, finding poems like encounters with old friends. It feels like such a mess of possibility and beauty, much like the table above.

In that context, I chose this one, from Talitha.

Lift up a stone, by Talitha Fraser

Lift up a stone and
You will find me there
I am in the hole of
Your doughnut
The spaces between 
The stars
I am down behind the sofa
Cushions with the lint and
Loose change
I can be seen in the raindrops
Sliding down the window pane
Smelled in Johnson's baby shampoo
Heard in the drawer opening
To put away your clothes
In the soft folds of the wrinkles
In the corner of your eye
I am there.