(taken by JWW Savill Gardens June 2014) tree not even for a moment do things stand still: look at colour, in the trees Seiju, his death poem (d. 1776, age 75)
Smile
Posted on by James Woodward
smile Then new events said to me, ‘Don’t move. A sublime generosity is coming towards you.’ You are the fountain of the sun’s light. I am a willow shadow on the ground. You make my raggedness silky. The soul at dawn is like darkened water that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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
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.
looking
Posted on by James Woodward
white flower He said, I am with you always. That means, when you look for God That God is the looking itself, Yes, and the thought of looking And the you that thinks the thought Always, already, all of it; There is no outside. A white flower grows in the silence Let your […]
Roses
Posted on by James Woodward
roses my love in secret sent this secret to me give me your self give me your all go like a wanderer take to the road walk calmly into the flames burn without burning burn, burn, as the fire becomes roses my blasphemies are what god is watch the glow of god: see […]
Memories
Posted on by James Woodward
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. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes […]
Remembering Maya Angelou
Posted on by James Woodward
I started my blogging life in 2008 partly as a way of capturing my experience of a sabbatical in America. In the spring of that year I spent a month in Washington DC followed by three months in Chicago. It was a rejuvenating and very significant time. I managed to get over to Washington […]
A Tree….
Posted on by James Woodward
a tree telling of Orpheus he spoke, and as no tree listens I listened, and language came into my roots out of the earth, into my bark out of the air, into the pores of my greenest shoots gently as dew and there was no word he sang but I knew its meaning. […]