See, as they strip the robe from off his back And spread his arms and nail them to the cross, The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black, And love is firmly fastened onto loss. But here a pure change happens. On this tree Loss becomes gain, death opens into birth. Here wounding…
Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross, To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss, And yet not weep? Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved; Not so…
They came, as called, according to the Law. Though they were poor and had to keep things simple, They moved in grace, in quietness, in awe, For God was coming with them to His temple. Amidst the outer court’s commercial bustle They’d waited hours, enduring shouts and shoves, Buyers and sellers, sensing one more hustle,…
I was not there. I did not dream my way up prayer-worn Temple steps as you did, Christ-Mother, that day. I was not there. I did not scan the gloom or clutch a hand for courage in the Temple waiting-room. I was not there. I did not hear the praise which ancient ones sang of…
He knew his son would outshine him from the beginning, so taught this child the only thing he could: The skill of taking blades and wood, and turning death into something else entirely.
He will come like last leaf’s fall, One night when the November wind has flayed the trees to bone, and earth wakes choking on the mould. the soft shroud’s folding. He will come like frost, One morning when the shrinking earth opens on mist, to find itself arrested in the net of alien sword-set beauty.…
It was a time like this, war and tumult of war, a horror in the air. Hungry yawned the abyss – and yet there came the star and the child most wonderfully there. It was a time like this of fear and lust for power, license and greed and blight – and yet the Prince…
For heaven’s king has made the earth his home Not just the hill of Sion, but the whole Round world. Call him from anywhere, he’ll Come to you and make his dwelling. Hail Him in any language, he replies In your own mother-tongue. For now your soul Is his true Sion, and each day you…
Our King is calling from the hungry furrows Whilst we are coasting through the aisles of plenty, Our hoardings screen us from the man of sorrows, Our soundtracks drown his murmur:’ I am thirsty’. He stands in line to sign in as a stranger And seek a welcome from the world he made, We see…
He cannot stop these memories of fire Crackling and flashing in his head, Not just in fevered dreams; the fires break Into the light of day. He burns with shame, But still he screams and shakes, because the dead, Are burning too and screaming out his name. They told him his condition had a name,…