Because We Hunkered Down

These bleak and freezing seasons

Here is a poem for those of you who, like me, find this time of year difficult to get through, perhaps all the more so with the news, as well as the weather, so bleak. So here, from Parable and Paradox, is something about hunkering down and hanging on.

As always you can hear me read the poem by clicking n the title or the play button

Because We Hunkered Down

These bleak and freezing seasons may mean grace

When they are memory. In time to come

When we speak truth, then they will have their place,

Telling the story of our journey home,

Through dark December and stark January

With all its disappointments, through the murk

And dreariness of frozen February,

When even breathing seemed unwelcome work.

 

Because through all of these we held together,

Because we shunned the impulse to let go,

Because we hunkered down through our dark weather,

And trusted to the soil beneath the snow,

Slowly, slowly, turning a cold key,

Spring will unlock our hearts and set us free.

Seven Whole Days with Faye Hall: 4 Sun, Moon and Stars

lights in the night, the lucid moon

Continuing my round of roundels celebrating the patterns of the Primal Week in Genesis Chapter One, I come to the fourth day  on which we receive the gift of the sun and the moon, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars in their courses, all the heavens declaring the glory of the Lord. As before I give you the verses from Genesis which form the poem’s starting point and then the poem itself, which you can hear by clicking on the Roman Numeral or on the ‘play’ button.

The Canadian artist Faye Hall has made a beautiful sequence of 63 paintings responding to my Seven Whole Days Sequence and we have published it as a book, which you can purchase from her web site here  or, in the uk from Amazon Here.  Faye has kindly allowed ne to include with each poem one or two of the paintings from the book, to give you a taste of it, and you can see these paintings for yourself at the MHC Gallery in Winnipeg from 16th March to 5th of May. I will be at the gallery on 15th April for a special book signing and launch event, full details here

These poems were originally published in ‘Parable and Paradox’   Canterbury Press in the summer of 2016

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

IV

 

Lights in the night, the lucid moon and sun,

The lesser and the greater share your light

And lift my heart to you when day is done,

Lights in the night.

 

And lonely souls are gladdened by the sight,

For those who dwell in darkness hope is born.

The scattered stars still tingle with delight

 

Treading the dance, the seasons in their turn

Salute the lights of heaven in their flight.

In our dark hearts your praises shine and burn;

Lights in the night.

and lonely souls are gladdened by the sight