Category Archives: poetry

Preaching from the shadows

Posted on March 28, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

The sound of mallet on metal
wood and splintered flesh
ricochets around the city walls
shivering the fabric of
the crowd that clothes the alleyways
too often lost in thought and prayers
we fall without an echo
into the open grave Continue reading →

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How I got up this morning

Posted on March 26, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Because I thought
I am Lazarus
and you are calling me
out of my stupor
and unbinding
unwinding me
toward you Continue reading →

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Afterwards

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

It was the following day that sealed it for him waking with the rooster an hour before dawn the darkness of the room unfamiliar tangled in bedsheets he shivered still straining his hope to conjure up that sun light and … Continue reading →

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Secret

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Today’s little Lenten story is a secret so I can’t tell it to you, but you can whisper it so that only your body and your breath and God and the cat can hear it.

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Living water

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I have always loved the sea. Continue reading →

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A meditation on the Cross

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I imagine they made it of living wood; the tree itself shared your fate,cut down in service of hateful violence,its beauty overlooked, its sacrifice, turning our exhaust into air, sweet bitterness of fruit and pollen, its praise of heaven, limbs raised high, razed to the ground with you. They did not … Continue reading →

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Running out of water in the holy lands

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

A little Lenten story First in the north, between fruit trees and shade, it seemed it should be more difficult than this to die, except for the envy of avocadoes and apricots, hoarding the hidden streams of mercy for themselves; It made more sensein the south, where … Continue reading →

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Born of water and the Spirit

Posted on March 4, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I am not preaching this Sunday, and there was no little Lenten story/legend this morning, so consider this an offering to replace them both. ____________ You know, although it wasn’t recorded, that when God made Adam — dust of the … Continue reading →

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Things that do not exist

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Taken out of context it reads like a ghost, 
like the time I conjured up a cat 
in the attic that leapt like a flame 
and vanished along with its own shadow 
when I was a child.  Continue reading →

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St David

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

A little Lenten legend A pigeon with a golden beak fed him from its overflowing crop words of grace like kisses that he might strew abroad with every penitential sigh the love of our sweet Saviour; his breath uncluttered by … Continue reading →

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