This year
May we risk believing
That old bruised fruit
Can grow new skin
That the tables in our temples
Can be overturned
Dust shaken from rugs
Threadbare and worn
Their colour renewed
Author Archives: maryfeatherstone
PRESENCE
Into the absence
Inert chaos of nil
A word falls
Fires the cosmos
With pure presence
Extracts from grey nonbeing
Energy of light
Divides it from the dark
Te Deum
My husband John has just finished composing a Te Deum in 12 movements, juxtaposing classical and contemporary modes. Over the months of hearing extracts of the text through the study wall, the music gradually coming into form around it, I’ve grown more familiar with it, and been asking myself how it computes with our times. InContinue reading “Te Deum”
NEW YEAR SPEED BUMP
I drag my case over the man-made border
Between one year and the next
A sleeping policeman
Lying in the road
Marks time in yellow and black
Opens an eye and speaks
DIEU-MOBILE
Dieu dit
J’en ai marre :
De plus en plus cons
Les hommes creusent la terre
En extraient la moelleMinent le sol sous leurs pieds
Il ne restera plus que des trous
Du gruyère d’ici peu.
Sabbatical Musings
SABBATICAL MUSINGS Based on reading books by Rowan Williams, Graham Tomlin, Richard Rohr, Susan Cain, and places and people visited. Much of my sabbatical reading turned out to be connected with issues of power, control, and vulnerability. Not surprising then, that I simply had to take a photo of this massive installation on a wallContinue reading “Sabbatical Musings”
SCOTLAND
SCOTLAND
HUSH
Certainty knows so loudly
A fighter-jet
Carving the world
Into soundbites
Mass-produced in bright keys
Belched from its rear end
Filling all space for thought
With static
A TALE OF TWO WORLDS
Fairy tales
Predictable pleasing
Happy end delivered
Folded and pressed
To the good, never ugly
Vistas of rolled lawns
Patchwork fields
Forests grown on request
Ready-clipped to measured height
WORDS
Words ride on sound-waves
Across smoky rooms and satellites
They carve out keys
That unlock underground rivers
And spark dry flints
Into fires that buzz
Hum and ignite ideas
Through towns and continents
We must use them well
Mud at the wall 