Spring, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

While we wait for warmth to return, here's a poem by one of my all-time favourite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring—
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
   The descending blue ; that blue is all in a rush
With richness ; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
 
What is all this juice and all this joy ?
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
 
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
 

Strange Disciple

This is Strange Disciple from my collection My Mother is an Old Elephant. It's inspired by a marginal note I found in in the gospel of Luke in an old KJV bible. The note related to the story of the man who was casting out demons in the Lord's name and was rebuked by the disciples because he wasn't one of them. That was years back, and now I don't know exactly where I found it. 

It reminds me of one of my favourite quotations from the late Henri Nouwen, the Catholic priest, writer and social activist, who said:

"When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian."

Enjoy!

Strange Disciple

Held no creed
believed in what he could believe
bending like a flaxen reed.
Blessing where blessing lacked
healed heavy souls and broken-backed.
Never knew the master’s gaze,
fought with his men
who thought they had the rights back then
not recognising whom they praised.
Spent his long days doing good
caring, mending, defending
putting heart in heartless places
winning some,
losing more
never keeping score.
Now buried with a single stone
by half-men from among the tombs
who knew a saint by smell alone
and waited for the carnival to leave
then carved his name
and beat their breast
full men at their very best.

Who was that man, he’d often thought
who threw the fire that he had caught?