One of the elements of living in a new place is finding the right place to do your shopping! Thankfully I have found a wonderful vegetable supplier who delivers a box of fruit and veg. I never know what is in the box - and was surprised to find corn last week! It reminded me of t
Fountain
Posted on by James Woodward
fountain
Up from the bronze, I saw
Water without a flaw
Rush to its rest in air,
Reach to its rest, and fall.
From Louise Brogan, Roman fountain
the genius of Angelou
Posted on by James Woodward
temple
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we se
What love sees is true?
Posted on by James Woodward
St. John tells how, at Cana's wedding feast,
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.
It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without
what we do?
Posted on by James Woodward
don't go back to sleep
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back
The Marvelous
Posted on by James Woodward
The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.
The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,
A crewman shinned an
Joy
Posted on by James Woodward
Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by,
As the Apache dancer
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Joy always,
Joy everywhere--
Let joy
Seeing?
Posted on by James Woodward
amazement is the thing
The point is the seeing, the grace
beyond recognition, the ways
of the bird rising, unnamed, unknown,
beyond the range of language, beyond its noun.
Eyes open on growing, flying, happening,
and go on opening. Manifold, the world
dawns on unrecogn
Space
Posted on by James Woodward
the gap between
What do they do,
The singers, tale writers, dancers, painters,
Shapers, makers?
They go there with empty hands, into
The gap between.
They come back with things in their hands.
They go silent and come back with words, with tunes.
They go into confusion
O glistening sunlight
Posted on by James Woodward
O glistening sunlight,
O iridescence, O unique shining,
The wedding of the Godhead:
O burning jewel.
The clothes you wear are noble
They fall straight and clear;
Your friendship is with angels:
A citizen of the sacred.
Come, enter into the palace of the King.
Hild
I said to my soul
Posted on by James Woodward
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and th
Love after Love
Posted on by James Woodward
the time will come
when with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome
and say, sit here. Eat
You will love again the stranger who was yourself
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
Darkness:orange
Posted on by James Woodward
I listened in emptiness on the moor-ridge.
The curlew’s tear turned its edge on the silence.
Slowly detail leafed from the darkness. Then the sun
Orange, red, red erupted
Silently, and splitting to its core tore and flung cloud,
Shook the gulf open, showed blue,
And th
Sky, Air, Light
Posted on by James Woodward
sky, air, light
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. Th
Blueness
Posted on by James Woodward
blueness
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness.
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where
Water
Posted on by James Woodward
Water
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.
Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;
My litany would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,
And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where an
Yes?
Posted on by James Woodward
rejected things
After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
One th
The new Poet Laureate
Posted on by James Woodward
The excitement of welcoming the first woman to the post of poet laureate is similar to the emotion with which a supporter of an under-rated football team greets a goal. Then, of course, for both genders, there's the moral satisfaction, and political buzz, in seeing the
In Praise of…
Posted on by James Woodward
An extraordinarily rich and wonderful poet
UA Fanthorpe
Photo: UPPA
She did not see herself as a serious contender. In fact, she made her preference clear in a poem, Petition of the Cats Concerning Mr Peter Porter. Still, she was happy that the post went to Andrew Moti
Always Changing
Posted on by James Woodward
tree
not even for a moment
do things stand still: look at
colour, in the trees
Seiju, his death poem (d. 1776, age 75)