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Category Archives: poetry
Lasting
Is this how it was for Adam and Eve: old as time and young as their memories; innocence easily beguiled, carrying still the remnants of chaos, shaken off to water the tree? And see who answers their tapping on the … Continue reading
Render
A silhouette against my eyelids, black on red; a name beaten out by my heart’s tattoo; the claim that staked me through and through; I render unto, surrender unto – whose image and title is this?
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged Matthew 22:15-22, render unto Caesar, surrender, Year A Proper 24
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The wedding robe
White lace cut down to a christening robe. Later, a doll with curly blonde hair wore my mother’s leftover wedding weeds, a moulded Miss Haversham preserved in plastic, dressed for the feast, rosebud lips perpetually parted for love.
Vineyards
I cannot grow an apple tree, aromatic herbs, fresh flowers. I dig and plant and water and weed; everything dies. I drink the wine of another’s vineyard, climb the walls to scrump the orchard, cadge the scent of another’s roses … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, sermon preparation
Tagged Isaiah 5:1-7, Matthew 21, parable, Psalm 80, scrumping apples, vineyard
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Seeing the light
On the carriageway out of the castle about halfway down, the tunnel bends sharply. They told us that a dray horse, poorly schooled in perspective, would find it hard to believe that the tight, bright portal at the end of … Continue reading
Since
I watch her in the early light, her breath slight, her skin soft; barely there, she is solidly unconcerned. Since, she has become like a little sparrow, evasive yet everywhere; I saw one in a Walmart once, swooping between the … Continue reading
Prayers post concussion
I am realizing how much of a Pelagian I am; how much of my worth, my self-satisfaction is wrapped up in works and words; what I do is what I am; what I say is what I pray. Which leaves … Continue reading
Break water
Breakwater before midnight; primal elements: dark water. Let light break. This dark water tastes wrong; unseasoned soup, it will not hold me up. I throw up my hands. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, there will be no meeting of … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
Tagged birth, Canticle 10, creation, genesis 1:1, Isaiah 55:6-11, Lake Erie, Second Song of Isaiah, two-way prayer
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Bearing
It is such a little thing, to hang above my heart, given me at baptism, my magpie hands clutched at its shiny surface, all glistering and light; once clasped I hardly know I’m wearing my golden cross while sunrise shadows … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, sermon preparation
Tagged baptism, cross, Matthew 16:21-28, talisman, Year A Proper 17
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over the water 