Category Archives: poetry

From the forge

Posted on February 4, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I madea heart; hammeredaway at steelhot from the forgeuntil I got into its groove,turned the base untilit barely lookedlike the barrel of a gunany more.I sliced it with the sawuntil it wouldn’t holdany more.I thought aboutthat Bible verse,turning hearts of … Continue reading →

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(A conversion) not (of St Paul)

Posted on January 25, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

No lightning bolt nor sudden fall but the gentle tap-tap of mercy raining like hoofbeats like heartbeats over the umbrella of consciousness – Who are you? You sang, my pied piper;I was powerlessnot to follow; you led my soul astray, … Continue reading →

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Leading cause

Posted on January 16, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I saw the eagle twice today; once above the middle school pinned out against the sky, spread upon the wind, a standard flying; then again a vision hunched over the cemetery, image of an angel, ugly crying. __________________________ In 2020, … Continue reading →

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Follow the star

Posted on January 5, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

But what if I have spent too long staring into space longing for a sign What if the mystery were here all along in the tall grass of childhood the stumbling steps of grief the sudden sharp discovery underfoot that all is not yet seen the … Continue reading →

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The priest

Posted on January 3, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Leave your prayers here with me,   not because I can answer them –   you and I know better –   but to slip on like borrowed shoes   before I cross the threshold

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The Innocents

Posted on December 28, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

From behind the page their cries muffled by millennia seep through Where, we ask, is God? There swaddled tight smuggled out into the wilderness What good, we ask, is a God who bleeds when the sword lays open a mother’s … Continue reading →

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A prayer for Christmas Day

Posted on December 25, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Gracious God, We hear of Christmas by candlelight in Kiev; we think on the borrowed cave, rude shelter in which to bear life. We hear of twins reunited – thank God! – with their family before Christmas. We cannot help wonder … Continue reading →

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Nativity

Posted on December 24, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Not by might the almighty shoulders a way into the world, but on borrowed strength, the muscles of his mother conspiring to bring him to birth;  Not by right does he claim his throne but humbles himself to the stable stall and is fed by … Continue reading →

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Awaiting glory

Posted on December 22, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

The stars have turned cold awaiting their chance to shine shrouded in clouds watching the child swaddled in hope and fear crossing the desert braving the sea lullabied in a bomb shelter –a mother wearied by the wake father haunted by the absence of a ghost spirit sibling … Continue reading →

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The wolf and the lamb

Posted on December 16, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

To speak of love is to render it tame; so the word became flesh and took again the fiercer features of life; took flight from the angels, hid instead within the brutish warmth of mother-milk and frailty; the love whose name we dare to speak for fear else of devouring one … Continue reading →

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