A Sonnet for All Saints Day

The dark is bright with quiet lives and steady lights undimmed

All Saints Day falls on November 1st, so here is my sonnet for All Saints Day, a little in advance, for anyone who might want to read or make use of it in a service. On the feast of All Saints we celebrate the light of Christ reflected in the saints, living and departed who surround and inspire us even in our present darkness. The image I have chosen to accompany this poem is of candles lit to celebrate All Saints day in Poland. As always you can hear the poem by clicking on the ‘play’ button if it appears, or on the title. This sonnet comes from my sequence Sounding the Seasonswhich came out last year with Canterbury Press. My new book of poetry The Singing Bowl, was published last Friday and is already available on Amazon and from book stores. If you are in Cambridge why not come to the Launch at St. Edwards church at 7:30pm on Wednesday 6th November. All of my books are available from this page on Amazon USA and this page on Amazon UK.

The image below the poem is by Margot Krebs Neale

All Saints

Though Satan breaks our dark glass into shards

Each shard still shines with Christ’s reflected light,

It glances from the eyes, kindles the words

Of all his unknown saints. The dark is bright

With quiet lives and steady lights undimmed,

The witness of the ones we shunned and shamed.

Plain in our sight and far beyond our seeing

He weaves them with us in the web of being

They stand beside us even as we grieve,

The lone and left behind whom no one claimed,

Unnumbered multitudes, he lifts above

The shadow of the gibbet and the grave,

To triumph where all saints are known and named;

The gathered glories of His wounded love.

‘Each shard still shines’ image by Margot Krebs Neale