The Lord is Risen! He is risen indeed Alleluia!
Heres is an extra ‘fifteenth’ sonnet for Easter Morning, which I dedicate to my friend Mary who asked me to write it, and to the memory of her husband Gavin. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
This sonnet, and the others I have been posting for Holy Week are all drawn from my collection Sounding the Seasons, published by Canterbury Press here in England. The book is now back in stock on both Amazon UK and USA and physical copies are shortly to be available in Canada via Steve Bell‘s Signpost Music. The book is now also out on Kindle. Please feel free to make use of these sonnets in church services and to copy and share them. If you can mention the book from which they are taken that would be great.
I am grateful to Oliver Neale for permission to use the image above. as always you can hear the sonnet by clicking on the ‘play’ button or on the title.
XV Easter Dawn
He blesses every love which weeps and grieves
And now he blesses hers who stood and wept
And would not be consoled, or leave her love’s
Last touching place, but watched as low light crept
Up from the east. A sound behind her stirs
A scatter of bright birdsong through the air.
She turns, but cannot focus through her tears,
Or recognise the Gardener standing there.
She hardly hears his gentle question ‘Why,
Why are you weeping?’, or sees the play of light
That brightens as she chokes out her reply
‘They took my love away, my day is night’
And then she hears her name, she hears Love say
The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.
Malcolm Guite 
Wonderful! I had a sense as I was reading it and listening to beautiful music of Mary in a sort of new Eden, but now instead of human beings hiding from the Gardener, He is temporarily hidden from her by her tears. But He has made a new encounter possible – no more need to hide from God or to feel that God is hidden from us. Thank you for this blessing on Easter morning!
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Oh WHAT a lovely poem for Easter Day. May we see that blessed face and hear the voice of the bridegroiom calling us soon: Come my beloved, arise and come away.
THis made me weep. Thank you.
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Thank you for these lovely sounds blending together to almost, almost, almost hear Him say my name too.
Thank you Emily. He calls each of us by name as though each big us were the only person in the world for whereas our attention is finite and do must be divided and diminished, his is infinite, always complete for each of us.
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Thank you so very much for this beautiful Sonnet, it was read by our Rector Mark Bond in St Brelades Church in Jersey and streamed over the internet at the morning service he put out at 10.30, I know we have a huge listening to this service and i wonder how many hundreds of people heard it this morning I hope they were moved as i deeply as i was moved. thank you for sharing your wonderful talent. Denise Waller.
Thanks it’s good to know these poems are getting out there and helping