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Birth
Pool
A dark pool, gloomy and grave
Nothing seen in its brown depths Rocks or creatures hidden Around it mountains loom But on a hot day I lower into its coldness Feet slip on slimy rocks Buffet submerged stones, I gasp At the cold, enveloping darkness Then understanding its boulders Feeling the pebbled shores I slide in its slickness through luxurious waters Know on naked skin: perfection Together we share the dark pool Skin slides pass skin. As we dance in the cool darkness We create another memory of love This, of course, is a baptism A baptism in the dark earth’s waters Something began here and something ended Here is the possibility of a new body birthing Second Sight
Now, shrouded
earlier a shank, an esgair of rainbow grew from the place out there over the hills obscured by the rain out there summers ago the air heavy with heat we swam naked in black waters Now, blue sky breaking windows smeared with fresh rain I see green mountains emerging from mist and out there remember happiness Welcome
to the big and the beautiful
the small and the scared the wicked and the winsome the pious and the pretty Welcome to the babies in nappies and the old men in Armani Welcome to the men in black and the women in white Welcome to the red and the gold the blue and the buff the bronze and the silver the muddy brown and the bright pink Welcome if you aren’t sure or you might be right if you wish you were or you wish you weren’t Welcome to all who wonder and welcome to all who want An Irfon Thanksgiving
God of the harvest we thank you for the
earth
For soil rich and ripe for the creatures of the earth tiny and writhing for the worms and the fungi, the moulds and the mosses renewing the earth and making it fertile: ready for the seed God of the harvest we thank you for the green For chlorophyll and the miracle of life for light transformed and air reformed for energy stored in sugars and oxygen liberated… that the world might breathe God of the harvest we thank you for grass For the sweetness of the hills robust through the winter, flourishing in spring, resilient in summer heat for the grazing and the hay and the silage: the mother of the flocks and the carpet of life God of the harvest we thank you for wood For hedges spiky and stock-proof for trees shady and strong for gift of berry and bounty of damson, for magic of mushroom and secret of nut for all that grows and swells and lives from the earth God of the harvest we thank you for mountains For earth rising to heaven for pasture in the summer and snow in the winter for the rhythm of the land for the beauty of the sight God of the harvest we thank you for water For the flowing of the garrulous streams for the wet of the rain bringing life in abundance drenching the earth, feeding the green, growing the grass, nurturing the wood flowing from the mountains into the valley God of the harvest we thank you for the stock For the wool of the sheep and the fat of the cattle for the milk of the cow and the lean of the pig for all that lives and dies and brings us food for all that births and renews the flock God of the harvest we thank you for the birds For buzzard and kite in shining sky For chicken scratching the earth and laying our breakfast for the little birds singing and echoing our praise God of the harvest we thank you for farmers For the early mornings and the long summer nights for the care of the flock and the love of the land for all that is done to feed us and clothe us and sustain the land through the long slow years God of the harvest we thank you for our gardens For beans in abundance wreathing on rods for root in the ground and berry on the bush for food shared and the taste of the earth on our plates God of the harvest we thank you for forests For the foresters nurturing the trees for the wood grown over decades for fuel and timber and the memory of that tree crossed long ago God of the harvest we thank you for each other For kindness and compassion for arguments resolved and disagreements accepted for walking alongside when the way is hard and sharing the joy when the way is good God of the harvest we thank you for this land For the animals who lived it for the people who build it for all that it gives us: the food and the shelter, the warmth and the love our home where we live and we move and we have our being. Soul music
Sing to the Lord a new song
Let everything that has life, praise the Lord Mighty baritones and soaring sopranos Husky jazz divas and screeching rock vocals Mongolian throat singers and Gregorian chant Let everything that has life, praise the Lord Solo violinists and cascades of strings Tiny piccolos and blaring trumpets The wailing sax and the weird theremin Let everything that has life, praise the Lord Synthesizers and Hammond organs Electric pickups and drum machines Computer code and pre-recorded tape Let everything that has life, praise the Lord Singing in the bath and a child's rhyme A wheezy hymn and a happy jingle The blackbird's song and the raven's cry Let everything that has life, praise the Lord Swallows
A hundred swallows filled the air
singing swinging through sunlit sky preening perched on a telegraph wire flushed in a dazzle of fluid flight Then silence And low over trees a scudding hawk pursued at speed by a swarm of a hundred chittering squeals A Brecknockshire Jesus
If I met Jesus in these Welsh hills
who would he be? A shepherd quiet on the high hill transfigured by light breaking the grey sky? A forester chainsaw in hand felling a tree and its dark crossbeam? A prophet standing in the Irfon waist-deep calling the people to repentance? A priest dressed in black counting the 30 coins in the collection plate? A botanist scouring the forests for the last lost liverwort? A fisherman patient on the riverbank baiting his hook with forgiveness? A hotelier opening his doors to the lost and forsaken, the worried and scorned? If I met Jesus in these Welsh hills would he be a child or a woman or an ordinary man who looked just like me? Assumption Day
Mary's day in deep August
The weather's hot The skin sticky The trees dark, heavy green Swallow-skimmed sky filling with clouds: Heaven's blue slowly smothered By the rain-bringers For today Mary will not rise lighter than the air But the mother will stay with us Heavy, warm, fruitful Buried in the dark earth Flow…
CloudI come from mistfrom air from sky-damp smothering hammering down on the stationary earth I come in wetness in the fullness of air unburdening BogI gather on blade, on stone, on sheep, on woolseeping into earth trickling into darkness weighing the ground with the wetness with soak I come into land heavy, heavy, heavy with the dampness StreamOut of soakout of seep I gather drop by drip into tiny trace, into streak, into silver thread I run I gather faster pace by pace into rivulets into stream into brook leaping dashing down over rock flinging shining in sun cantering I come into the breakneck gallop of life, living running free Forestinto darknessinto tree into the tall place I clatter but shrink down into my blackness, into my wetness, into my fastness hurry past and I come out into light PoolI fallOh! through light Oh! through bright Oh! through air heavy clattering on rock into myself into darkness deepness depth wait in the cup of earth silent before fullness swells me and I come into the lip of running clatter splash and rush yet more LifeI am lived inI breathe Insect skips over me drops into me births And birds swim in me Dipper and Kingfisher and Heron still as tree and splash, the Otter chasing fish The roots turning, turning, wreathing All lives in me I come and bring life FieldI flowI smooth I run and sweep around meadow horse hedge and gate the measured land I come into man's world Manpast roadunder bridge rush and race and running fast tangle of fence plunged in me detritus Then past brick past building (stationary and strange no sway no change) but smell of man seeps into me foaming sticky I cannot sluice it but I come clattering through village through farm through man and all his means WidenessI fillI drench I flow I suck stream and ditch and leech of land I swell I bend I come strong and full and deep tree-banked dark watered irresistible I am Irfon I come I flow into gushing river into sea into ocean into world I come I flow and I am Irfon Follow the Christ
Follow the Christ
out on the wild hill wind and raven your companions Journey to a new land the secret valley where prayers have subverted the centuries Follow the Christ here, down gentle lanes through familiar country where families have bred and bought Gather around the hearth and peer into the mysteries of the fire Follow the Christ out of the dark forest out of the threatening gloom and the old wolves howling in the soul Be safe in the castle of faith and sharpen your blade for the battle An Epynt Sequence
Maunday Thursday
We clamber towards Calvary
The mountain is still white with snow even as the sun slowly exposes the frozen earth beneath and flocks of dirty sheep wander in search of green Inside the barns the ewes are lambing but outside they shiver in the murderous wind And we clamber towards Calvary through the detritus of modern consumption over the wreckage of Christendom back to some image of Jerusalem where the Lamb of God gathers his fragile friends before the howling gale descends Good Friday
On good Friday the sun is bright and warm
glistening on the ridge of snow but deeper hidden in the gullies there is still blackness cold, still blackness lurking in the wild place Holy Saturday
The freeze deepens
Daffodils who valiantly survived the snow are flattened by the deep frost: looking tired and weary beyond redemption But maybe the sun will revive them May be there is yet warmth in this cold spring Easter Day
Today not shut inside
cozy, warm, bed-cuddled but wild open huddled on the frozen heights of Epynt and as we left to return to the simple comforts of breakfast in the village hall the sun poked an orange disk into the brilliant sky rising with startling speed over an extravagant Easter Morning Llangammarch
This place
These people See, a ridge between two rivers where a church lives, still breathing amongst tombs and around it homes spread; council depot, hotel, one track of a railway line arcing between sheep-spread hills The village has long since reached over the river bridge to chapel and shop and two rows of houses then scattering piecemeal into the foothills of mountains Life has been lived here: horses traded fish fished cars raced in early mornings And there are still the quiet places: a lost field hidden between river and railway, down by the dipper-bridge where otters play and here in the deep, still church-heart where a saint once prayed Singing With The Birds
In a
break in the rain
he appears in the crab apple softly fluting A song thrush in winter testing his voice for the trial of spring A brown arrow speeds the river turns banks belly flops the water and dips in greeting on the gravel shore Sitting out here in early-morning (best when the light has just broke) birds will sometimes fly fast close by my head and I duck in laggardly protection but one day perfectly still a blue tit landed on my blue hat and, for a moment, I and the world was perfectly at one Under the eaves of the church the sparrows nest: where we provide a crack warm-feathered love will grow Into the sky the kite circles such smoothness of sweep such careless grace and he a scavenger a hunter of the earth’s rank flesh Caught for a moment in the circle of my binoculars a blue tit shines with startling colour; how does the land of muddy green and grey brown produce this fidget of restless light? Everywhere on leaning fence in apple tree dropping to earth perched on a broken post She turns to me a redbreast and asks a question I puzzle to understand There was nothing that afternoon No dove descending on smooth wings No goosander wary and noisy in scattering flight Not even a great tit pealing the still air Just silence under the grey implacable heavens Until Splendid in black and yellow Busy on alder cones A bright siskin, redeemed the day Every day I watch the crows carrion, jackdaw, rook and each time I ask are the wings long? is the beat strong? are they acrobats of the huge sky? are they the legend we call Raven? On the church roof, pert and proud Pristine and perfect in plumage A pied wagtail Nodding to his many admirers These fly overhead The huge whiteness of swan The wild thrill of geese The strange black cross of the cormorant far from the craggy coast They are the skulkers the hunters beneath bush, behind pot the mysterious troglodytes of the winged world Spring creeps slow amongst these wild hills the peep of the nuthatch the squeak of the greenfinch the wild anger of the song thrush driving away the magpie! Corpus Christi
Here is the word: Receive
receive this all of you The rain in its wettingness The sun in its shinyness The serenading of song thrush The whirling of wind-rush The cloud in black and gray A wet Welsh day Receive this, all of this And flesh of the God-man and blood of the Christ-man and grace and the divine face and food from above and extravagant love Receive and swallow and ruminate and contemplate and digest The divine gift all black and earthy and raw all white and holy and light all gift all love Receive. from Elegies and SongsA green riverAn island thick with scrub A country of lush grass and damp wood And beyond… the eternal rolling hills On a walk from Cefn Gorwydd, I got lost Descending deeper into unknown territory I drove a herd of six black cattle down to a distant field there, they watched me wild as a sect of Celtic Saints Spring here comes thriftily Trees are reluctant to spread leaf Blossom blooms cautiously This earth, it seems, must earn its release A tiny bundle on the grass So white, so still So certainly lifeless but then the lamb rises, totters, fastens on the life-giving teat Encircling the church at Pentecost a dozen swifts fly in wild formation screeching the return to Earth of the sky-bound Holy Spirit After a few days of summer The wind blew The rain swirled Drenching everything with the memory of winter They are gathering the ewes for summer pasture The quad bikes roar The voices shriek The lambs learn the nip of the sheep dog’s teeth The summer of 2012 was cold and wet as a mountain bog Nothing grew, except the ravenous slugs And gardens reverted into weedy swamps A thousand years ago, it would have left us starving; buried the old and weak Around the honeysuckle a weird mist swarms Over the river a many-winged creature sweeps Strange fairies dance in the evening light This is insect world: the fountain of life No Corncrakes call here now Only the cranking of the engine The creaking of the machine When the silage is cut in mid-summer The fields of wheat are long gone Working horses are never seen But when the subsidies fail Will sheep vanish from the green hill? Autumn comes stealthily An edge of wind A darkening of berry A brown sadness of awakening death Ash trees loom in the field corners and cling to the steep bank Wise sentinels, they wait patient for the death-spores. The devastation Coming out of church into St. Cadmarch’s Field I look up and see Sculpted in living colour That, of which, I had been trying to speak Winter is the land’s Sabbath Drink may now flow freely in every Sunday pub But earth cannot so easily forget time’s rhythm Mist lags on the valley floor Sun will not burn it, heat will not lift it Today we live in the netherworld, Knowing neither night nor day The snowdrops, once so bright so thrusting, so hopeful are beginning to tire, beginning to fade It is the first death of the year The Ballad of John PenryHidden in the shadow of the grave EpyntJohn Penry was born In the mist and the darkening rain By the black river Dulas Cefn Brith was the name of his homestead A long, low house Modest but prosperous And well situated to catch the speckled sun Here he was raised A warm and comfortable home Seedbed of an inquiring mind Mother to a child of dangerous intelligence First educated by the Parson of Llangammarch He was quick and able Progressive and questioning Well-equipped to flourish at the grammar school in Brecon Latin and English he learned Grafted on to the Welsh bedrock But never supplanting his love of home The warm hiraeth for his native land. In 1580 the fatal choice was made From the dark, warm depths of Wales He journeyed to the low lands of England: The bright, shining spires of Cambridge And what a world was there! Men of learning and understanding Delving the ancient arts of rhetoric and logic: Creating a new breed of educated men Penry was a Welsh boy in an English world But he settled Learnt the grammar, stretched his mind Embraced the unfamiliar and the new And of all that Penry learned in Cambridge One thing shone brighter One thing touched deeper One thing captured him heart and soul: A Pearl of great Price, beyond all others: True Biblical Religion The vision of a Reformed Church Leading God’s elect into perfect holiness He became a Puritan Rejected the ritual of the Romish church The rules of bishops and prelates Cleaved to Calvin’s condensed religion. But returning home to the dark hills of Wales He was troubled Yes, he loved his family, delighted in home But their religion? Superstition Old practices, unreformed No knowledge of the Bible, no light The broad and easy path which leads to hell It troubled him He pleaded with his kin Showed clearly, plainly God’s laws in Scripture But could it be that his own dear family, his mother, his sisters Were not numbered amongst God’s Elect? Penry returned to England, uncertain, anxious Wrestling in his soul until… The light shone The mist on the black mountains cleared! His people had never known true religion Never heard God’s Word in their own tongue Or listened to the preaching of Godly men! The light shone. This was his vocation. This his call God had called John Penry to be the Welsh Harp To ring loud and clear the cause of Wales Expose error. Purify the Church Set free the Word of God to save his land He wrote an ‘Aequity’, a ‘Humble Supplication’ Piled argument on Scripture, Scripture on argument Showed clearly what needed to be done To save the land of Wales… It was accepted for publication Puritan’s applauded him But when it reached Whitgift, the prelate of Canterbury The clouds gathered, the darkness swelled Who was this young preacher to criticize the church? Question God’s appointed representatives? He was summoned, questioned Thrown in jail. In the dark cell he pondered Had not God ordained him, Called him to this work? So why thwarted? Why chained in darkness? Then searching Scripture, praying Once more the light dawned! The sun rose! Whitgift was no agent of Christ, no godly man But a servant of the Antichrist. A wolf in Christ’s fold! Penry was released. Warned. A marked man But now his path was certain. His way light He wrote, with others, many pamphlets Exposing truth. Making error plain. They found a printer: Waldegrave A skilled man and godly, who printed their words But secretly Evading Whitgift’s spies And so the word spread Pamphlets clearly expounding God’s truth Became a web of godliness: A healing virus spread abroad in elected hearts It was exhilarating for the young men Pushing the technology of printing They mocked the hypocrisy of priest and prelate Exposed the false religion which held men slaves But it was dangerous Informers could be anywhere Even in the midst of the godly People grew anxious, feared for their lives Often the printing press was moved From London to Daventry; Coventry to Warrington: Just beyond the reach of Whitgift’s long fingers But not for long An informer was captured and revealed all Whitgift clenched them in his cleric grip… But not Penry, he escaped, fled to the haven of Presbyterian Scotland By now Penry had married And his wife, Eleanor, joined him in Scotland But once more Penry became troubled Once more he questioned his faith Presbyterian Scotland should have been a paradise Reformed under the preaching of stern John Knox It had rejected bishops, all remnants of Romish ritual But it was not holy The church did not live solely under God’s law It was still entangled with the State Not free to be a holy people It served not God but the dictates of man Three years Penry live quietly in Scotland Turning in his mind his short life Scouring Scripture Seeking the way of true holiness Then Whitgift’s spies found him And Elizabeth wrote to her cousin James Demanding his return or banishment James agreed Now everything was clear Once more the light shone The true church is separate, independent of the State As Scripture said “Be ye not yoked with the ungodly” Purified by his Scottish digression Penry returned to London Entered once more the stronghold of the Antichrist Lived his body as his words demanded. London was a joy Here at last he lived the life his soul long for The warmth of family: four daughters and wife Re-creating distant Wales And a church of True Believers: God’s Elect Eager for the preaching of the word Meeting in a brother’s house or quiet wood Free of hierarchy and Whitgift’s long claw And the excitement, the thrill Of walking God’s narrow way Outwitting the agents of the Antichrist And living with Christ under the shadow of a cross It could not last One night in the depth of Islington’s woods The believers we gathered for prayer Fervent as Christ in Gethsemane… When Whitgift’s men appeared Armed with clubs and swords They arrested every man Locking them in a makeshift cell But Penry escaped Like Peter evading the prison guards He prayed his freedom And made his way to a brother’s house Around him the Fellowship gathered Secretly ferrying him to Stepney (A village to the east of London) Where he found refuge But not for long The vicar, a bishop’s man, Was suspicious And once more Penry was captured, held in chains He languished in the dungeon Cut off from light Darkly pondering his fate How had a boy from Breconshire ended here? He thought of his wife And his four children Deliverance, Safety, Sure Hope and Comfort How he missed them – Their childish innocence so resonant of home Had he abandoned them? Did their names mean nothing? Had he no comfort? No deliverance? No. He was God’s chosen one To plead the cause of Wales This was his candle in the gloom When the darkness of despair threatened to engulf him He had been a good and faithful servant And had not squirmed beneath the tyrant’s boot Whatever came He would be ready Two months he was in prison He wrote letters. Pleaded his cause Sought the ear of the Queen But there was no crack Church and State was set against him His ideas were too dangerous His actions too courageous This Welsh candle must be snuffed out On the 29th of May 1593 John Penry was taken to the place of execution He never saw his wife He never kissed his children He had no opportunity to preach a final sermon. Before a straggle of strangers He was hung upon the gallows John Penry was dead The God of John Penry: a hymnSing we the God of John Penry the martyr and prophetCalling us still though the world’s winds do blow us and buffet Speaking the Word, what we have followed and heard None can constrain or control it Eternal God of the mountains and cities of people Master of rulers and Queens and the priests of the steeple Let truth be heard, sounding the power of the Word Filling the hearts of God’s people No man can master the freedom of God and love’s power Beneath no tyrant will we bend and fearfully cower We hear the Word, and trust in what we have heard Now is God’s victory: love’s hour Tune: Lobe Den Herren
(Praise to the Lord the Almighty) |