Ripeness is all...

Plum harvesting

on the day before he leaves for university

 

 

 

We gazed at the spring foam

racing over the branches,

wondering at such beauty

and potential.

 

We watched anxiously

for the first fruit to appear…

Would they set?

Would the wind knock them off?

The branches looked so fragile.

 

We caught sight - in unbelief -

of the full clusters, ripening

to warm greens and pinks,

impossibly, suddenly there.

 

Now the harvesting,

colanders of sweet maturity.

Gathered and shared,

stewed and crumbled,

as we prepare to drop him off

to feast on these autumn days.

 

And we will wait

thankful, a little sad, and hopeful

for a homecoming jar

of preserves.

Palm Sunday - and afterwards

Palm Sunday

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.
 
from Sounding the Seasons by Malcolm Guite - see malcolmguite.wordpress.com
 
 
 

Trust exercise

 

On looking at the figure of Christ on the cross in the chapel of Loyola Hall

 

Close your eyes.

Put your arms out.

Just let yourself fall back…

 

He did.

He closed his eyes.

He put out his arms.

He let himself fall.

The ultimate exercise in trust.

 

And what a catch!

 

So he can say to us

it’s alright -

God won’t suddenly step back,

he won’t misjudge it,

he won’t take his eye off the ball.

 

Close your eyes.

Put your arms out.

Let yourself fall…

 

Dare you?

A long way from Bread

Here's a poem passed on by my friend Peter from the wonderful priest-poet, David Scott:

A long way from bread 

            1 

We have come so far from bread. 

Rarely do we hear the clatter of the mill wheel; 

see the flour in every cranny, 

the shaking down of the sack, the chalk on the door, 

the rats, the race, the pool, 

baking day, and the old loaves: 

cob, cottage, plaited, brick. 

 

We have come so far from bread. 

Once the crock said 'BREAD' 

and the bread was what was there, 

and the family's arm went deeper down each day 

to find it, and the crust was favoured. 

 

We have come so far from bread. 

Terrifying is the breach between wheat and table, 

wheat and bread, bread and what now goes for bread. 

Loaves come now in regiments, so that loaf 

is not the word. Hlaf 

is one of the oldest words we have. 

2 

I go on about bread 

because it was to bread 

that Jesus trusted 

the meaning he had of himself. 

It was an honour for bread 

to be the knot in the Lord's handkerchief 

reminding him about himself. So, 

O bread, breakable; 

O bread, given; 

O bread, a blessing; 

count yourself lucky, bread. 

 

3

Not that I'm against wafers, 

especially the ones produced under steam 

from some hidden nunnery 

with our Lord crucified into them. 

They are at least unleavened, and fit the hand, 

without remainder, but it is still 

a long way from bread. 

Better for each household to have its own bread, 

daily, enough and to spare, 

dough the size of rolled towel, 

for feeding angels unawares. 

Then if the bread is holy, 

all that has to do with bread is holy: 

board, knife, cupboard, 

so that the gap between all things is closed 

in our attention to the bread of the day. 

 

4

I know that 

'man cannot live on bread alone'. 

I say, let us get the bread right. 

 

David Scott

 

Two mothering poems

A lovely poem by Maura Dooley, for expectant mothers...


FREIGHT

I am the ship in which you sail,
little dancing bones,
your passage between the dream
and the waking dream,
your sieve, your pea-green boat.
I’ll pay whatever toll your ferry needs.
And you, whose history’s already charted
in a rope of cells, be tender to
those other unnamed vessels
who will surprise you one day,
tug-tugging, irresistible,
and float you out beyond your depth,
where you’ll look down, puzzled, amazed.


and a kinder version of Philip Larkin's cynicism, by Adrian Mitchell...

                                                    THIS BE THE WORST

They tuck you up, your mum and dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.
                                                      It deepens like a coastal shelf.
                                                      So love your parents all you can
                                                    And have some cheerful kids yourself.

Circle of benediction

A few weeks ago our son was about to set off for India...

Circle of benediction

 

 

Walking between high hedges

we talked of his coming travels

beyond the limits of our sight, and interference

but not our fears.

 

In the opening sky, a heron 

our familiar sign and promise

sails high over, and then round again,

including us in a perfect circle

   before the slow flight on.

 

What is it about these signs,

these precious portents -

   wheeling white doves over the crematorium stack,

   rainbow planted in sea and land,

   holding a meaning which holds us inside?

 

Is this just wishful hoping that all will be well?

Or is it an assurance given

that the black crows of despair

and the chequered equivocation of the magpies

do not have the last word…

 

that there is goodness, and love woven deep into the world

and blessing, under those wide, grey wings.

The poem by Mary Oliver which inspired this blog...

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

 

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

 

And they call again, “It's simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”