Mixed feelings in Snowdonia

After walking the lush green valleys of the Clywd, the Elwy, the Aled and the Conwy, it was sad to see the majesty of the mountains so harshly treated...

Welsh slate

They gouged deep scars in your beauty

tearing the skin

blood flowing hard and grey. 

As if in sympathy

sad terraces streak your face

running down to pool

in the flooded cemetery square.

It’s hard to see the beauty

under your disfigurement -

the raw wounds draw the eye. 

The healing green is slow to grow

on these dark rocks.

Only the snow pulls over

a cold white sheet.

Words from a prayer card - by Hub Oosterhuis

Sometimes
your words are like hands
embracing me, enfolding me.
Sometimes
your words are like a sword
piercing to the core of me.
Sometimes
your words are like a net
drawing me in
from the deep waters.

Retreat gatherings

Sometimes retreats are the settings for profound encounters with God, like the one referred to in this first poem, which was given in the chapel in the picture (and there just happened to be a storm that night).  The other poems show the way that 'ordinary life' can take on an extra level of significance to the person on retreat...

     Standing under a tree

     It was the night of the thunderstorm

     when lightning struck.

     In the Woodland Chapel

     I sat rooted to my chair

     a surprised conductor

     of joy.             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy blending 

 

Silently aware of my fellow retreatants

in all their rich variety

(which, after four weeks together in silence, you know)

all tucking into our vegetable soup

it occurs to me –

God doesn’t hate celery.

 

Even if, for some of us

it isn’t to our taste

or disagrees with us

- no reference to fellow diners intended.

 

Which is good

because I am certainly some people’s celery.

 

 Maybe, as I begin to see

how much God appreciates my flavour

that will help me to acquire

more inclusive tastebuds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God given

 

Take a picture

get an experience

steal a look -

our words betray our urgent grasp.

 

But to receive a gift

requires waiting.

The stream presents its tumbling notes

singly to the open ear.

The landscape’s complex shape and pattern

is unfolded slowly to the patient eye.

The blessing of the birds is laid gently on the shoulders

of one who pauses under the tree. 

 

Only the heart that is held open -

opened, held -

can receive the slow look of love,

the slow love of God.

 






Colloquy by Rory Geoghegan SJ

Inner Colloquy

 
Mind                This ‘talking with the Lord’ is fine, I’m sure
                        as long as you don’t think he’s really there.

Heart               My ‘really’ means much more than what’s up there

                        - I know the love that fills me when he’s near. 

Will                  If I can just let go, then he comes near

                        and answers with his calling my desire. 

Soul                 There is the taste of God in that desire

                        and he becomes the clothing that I wear. 

                        So, maybe we’ll both differ and concur:

                        we know, although we never can be sure.

 

 

After the retreat

A wise person once told me about how a retreat marks you. That is my hope...

heart felt

 

I know that your soft hands of love

have smoothed and thinned

the rough hardness around my heart

to something permeable, translucent

yielding to the touch.

I know this because

the last yellow leaves of the hazel

blazing in the hedge

strike joy to the centre of me,

and the birds collect my soul

to ride with them

the autumn skies.

 

 

In at the deep end

I was sent the first wonderful poem by a friend just before going on my 30 Day Retreat. It stayed with me, resonating with my experience of being wonderfully overwhelmed, with the experience of a fellow retreatant who went swimming every day, and with the from Tagore in a card given to us by our director. The last poem is my own beginnings of a response.

House by the Sea : Carol Bialock 

I built my house by the sea.
Not on sand, mind you.
Not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock,
A strong house.
By a strong sea.
And we got well-acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier;
always the sand between.

And then one day
(I still don't know how it happened),
but the sea came.
Without warning.
Without welcome, even.
Not sudden and swift, but sifting across the sand like wine.
Less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher,
till it reached my door.

I knew, then, there was neither flight nor death nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling you stop being good neighbors,
Well-acquainted, friendly-from-a-distance neighbors.
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe under water.

 

 

 

Traveller, where do you go  by Rabindranath Tagore

 

'Traveller, where do you go?'
I go to bathe in the sea in the redd'ning dawn,
along the tree-bordered path.'

'Traveller, where is that sea?'
'There where this river ends its course,
where the dawn opens into morning,
where the day droops to the dusk.'

'Traveller, how many are they who come with you?'
I know not how to count them.
They are travelling all night with their lamps lit,
they are singing all day through land and water.'

'Traveller, how far is the sea?'
'How far is it we all ask?
The rolling roar of its water swells to the sky when we hush our talk.
It ever seems near yet far.'

'Traveller, the sun is waxing strong.'
'Yes, our journey is long and grievous.
Sing who are weary in spirit, sing who are timid of heart.'

'Traveller, what if the night overtakes you?'
'We shall lie down to sleep
till the new morning dawns with its songs,
and the call of the sea floats in the air.'

 

 

 

 

 

Going under

We put in a toe
have a paddle
then maybe take the plunge – or fall
into this other way of being.

Barrelling along,
drifting
floating in stillness…
or masked and snorkelled
to look down in wonder at this other world.

Until one day we’re taken by the hand
and gently pulled right under –
discovering that there is no need
for flailing panic or for gasping breath.

This is our element now, and we are in it
fully, fearless and free
gliding with him through the golden light.

 

 

Pilgrimage meetings

I'm finally getting round to updating the blog with some poems I have written during my sabbatical this Autumn - and hopefully then some of the earlier ones I never put on. Here's the first, inspired by discovering that meeting people (on the North Wales Pilgrim's Way) was even more of a gift than watching the birds...

Watching 

You begin to learn how

if you just keep your eyes fixed

on that tree, that group of bushes, where

you thought you saw

a flash of wing

a bright eye looking back 

then, drawn along the line of your attending

from branch to branch

a movement in the leaves -

there!

- the bird will come. 

We also are great hiders,

wary of the world

keeping our vulnerable selves

safe in the topmost branches

or the deep hedge shadows. 

But I am learning how

if I just keep my face turned

towards your face, if I can -

I may then notice there, with eyes alert

(and other nameless senses)

the briefest shadow

or the flash of fire. 

And if I keep my eyes and heart so still and steady - open

with my attention fixed and fully given -

then down along that line between us

may come, slow inch by inch,

another such as I 

learning that here is one that can be trusted

teaching that I can trust this time of meeting

finding that we can learn to trust together

the one who watches us.