Late August, given heavy rain and sunFor a full week, the blackberries would ripen.At first, just one, a glossy purple clotAmong others, red, green, hard as a knot.You ate that first one and its flesh was sweetLike thickened wine: summer’s blood was in itLeaving stains upon the tongue and lust forPicking. Then red ones inked […]
Blog: Pictures-Books-Reflections
Vacation Surprises : (1) Craigie Aitchison in Glass
Posted on by James Woodward
I travelled up to London during my summer holiday to attend a wonderful celebration of marriage of Robin and Sezgi Amos at St Mary the Bolton’s in Chelsea. It was a sunny day and I managed to arrive at the church early to catch up with friends. As I wandered around the church building […]
close enough
Posted on by James Woodward
close enough O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists, that roll and rise! Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, World, I cannot […]
the choir and music
Posted on by James Woodward
the choir and music Silence is a great blue bell Swinging and ringing, tinkling and singing, In measure’s pleasure, and in the supple symmetry of the soaring of the immense intense wings glinting against All the blue radiance above us and within us, hidden Save for the stars sparking, distant and unheard in their […]
Love …………..
Posted on by James Woodward
in a glass darkly Though I spake with the tongues of men and angels and yet had no love, I were even as sounding brass: or as tinkling cymbal. And though I could prophesy and understood all secrets and all knowledge: yea if I had all faith so that I could move mountains out of […]
intricate
Posted on by James Woodward
intricate Intricate and untraceable weaving and interweaving, dark strand with light: designed, beyond all spiderly contrivance, to link, not to entrap: elation, grief, joy, contrition, entwined; shaking, changing, forever forming, transforming: all praise, all praise to the great web. Denise Levertov, Web
roses in sunlight
Posted on by James Woodward
roses in sunlight Our sense of these things changes and they change, Not as in metaphor, but in our sense Of them. So sense exceeds all metaphor. It exceeds the heavy changes of the light. It is like a flow of meanings with no speech And of as many meanings as of men. We […]
Peter Lanyon
Posted on by James Woodward
I love surprising discoveries. As a very enjoyable lunch last week in a London restaurant in Notting Hill this particular picture captured my imagination. I was sitting opposite it and amazed at its rhythmic and soothing effect. Painted by a Cornishman, influenced by American abstract Expressionists (especially Jackson Pollock) Lanyon is rooted in the Cornish […]
Peter Lanyon
Posted on by James Woodward
I love surprising discoveries. As a very enjoyable lunch last week in a London restaurant in Notting Hill this particular picture captured my imagination. I was sitting opposite it and amazed at its rhythmic and soothing effect. Painted by a Cornishman, influenced by American abstract Expressionists (especially Jackson Pollock) Lanyon is rooted in the Cornish […]
discovery poetry?
Posted on by James Woodward
wildflower Finding a new poet is like finding a new wildflower out in the woods. You don’t see its name in the flower books, and nobody you tell believes in its odd color or the way its leaves grow in splayed rows down the whole length of the page. In fact the very […]
wrought flower
Posted on by James Woodward
wrought flower I believe the earth exists, and in each minim mote of its dust the holy glow of thy candle. Thou unknown I know, thou spirit, giver, lover of making, of the wrought letter, wrought flower, iron, deed, dream the ordinary glow of common dust in ancient sunlight. Be, that I may […]
Love, thou art high
Posted on by James Woodward
oddity Love, thou are deep: I cannot cross thee. But, were there Two Instead of One — Rower, and Yacht — some sovereign Summer — Who knows, but we’d reach the Sun? Love, thou are Veiled: A few behold thee, Smile, and alter, and prattle, and die. Bliss were an Oddity, without thee, […]
Psalms Redux & Prayers for the Day by Carla Grosch-Miller
Posted on by James Woodward
Here is a wonderful book to look out for from a skilled and humane theologian and my commendation for my friend Carla Psalms Redux & Prayers for the Day by Carla Grosch-Miller We human beings become so easily distracted and even bored with the familiar. The comfort of the ‘well-known’ so easily can […]
the golden moon
Posted on by James Woodward
blue sky and the golden moon The moon is a curving flower of gold, The sky is still and blue; The moon was made for the sky to hold, And I for you. The moon is a flower without a stem, The sky is luminous; Eternity was made for them, To-night for us. Sara […]
Charity and Freeedom
Posted on by James Woodward
Charity and freedom are inseparable. Love must be free. Only charity is perfectly free. Love is loved for itself, not determined by anything else outside itself. It is not drawn by the satisfaction of anything less than itself. Only in charity, that is disinterested love, is love perfectly spontaneous. All love that is less […]
torso
Posted on by James Woodward
torso We cannot know the indescribable face Where the eyes like apples ripened. Even so, His torso has a candelabra’s glow, His gaze, contained as in a mirror’s grace, Shines within it. Otherwise his breast Would not be dazzling. Nor would you recognize The smile that moves along his curving thighs, There where love’s […]
luminous
Posted on by James Woodward
luminous the day is remarkable luminous, joyful so easy, to live with the taste of colour love makes me laugh and, at the last moment, I open my eyes. Paul Eluard, Serie
Rublev for Trinity Sunday
Posted on by James Woodward
Rublev One day, God walked in, pale from the grey steppe, slit-eyed against the wind, and stopped, said, Colour me, breathe your blood into my mouth. I said, Here is the blood of all our people, these are their bruises, blue and purple, gold, brown, and pale green wash of death. These (god) are […]
thy fearful symmetry
Posted on by James Woodward
angel tiger Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry ? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? When the stars threw down their […]
You are……….
Posted on by James Woodward
crystal You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, and the marsh birds suddenly in flight. From Billy Collins, Litany.