Arts Articles
Oh my darlin’
Witness this my turgid blossom pearl warbler O my darlin’ witness how we ache in ivory – billed heart break
The long grass
The grass will grow, green and tall our children fade from sight the grass will blow to yellow dust all children hold the light
A modern Meeting
Switch on the Zoom, and enter these, our homes, Our little fancies all revealed, The pictures on the wall, the tired or tended plants, Our tastes in texture, colour, unconcealed.
Goshen Friends Meeting
Shadows of my childhood family align along this plain meetinghouse bench in Chester County, where I have come to worship. Once our row was anchored by my strong blue serge-suited Father. Now I sit immersed in today’s quiet, seeking Source.
Never again
In our writing group a few weeks ago we were given the prompt ‘Never again’. It was a good choice, because it points in two directions. It is the cry of protest at an injustice or cruelty: ‘This must not happen ever again!’ And it holds the sadness, the...
Boxing Day morning, Walpole Park
Beneath its spreading branches the conifer shelters a body tucked up against the wall. The gloom makes details difficult to discern but they’re using a sleeping bag so it must have been planned in a manner of speaking. Out of the rain, the needled ground will afford a measure...
Source material: Angela Greenwood’s Loving Earth panel
My tapestry panel for the Loving Earth Project (above) is, I think, beautiful and chaotic. For me it evokes memories of a wonderful, creative, friendly and messy learning experience, in a serene house with my tennis club friends. I want to share how it all came about.
Come to my house
Some would number us in lost accounting piles: a wind toppled abacus of old Quakers. Our vestments of truth may be frayed to lace, the burlap of equality clotted with centuries of mistakes.
Poem: Come to Good
May we, in our stillness speak to thee? In this wooden house let us bless each other and be blessed. May we see your glory, hear your peace in this valley of birdsong. We have waited long, and yearned ...
Poem: ...passeth all understanding (Philippians 4:7)
Not a bit of this and that, but tarmac and vapour-trails. Every where? Everything else. This grass, that star among and between in here, over there without membrane or integument.