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Okay, okay… that title might be a little hyperbolic. But Apple has released a new collection of images "Shot on an iPhone 6" and I'm amazed by the clarity…
During Holy Week I have been collaborating with my good friend Emily who is in training to be a priest. She has written a poem for every day of Holy Week and asked me to accompany it with a photo. We enjoyed our quarantine collaboration project and here are the results in full. I hope you enjoy, I think Emily's poems are really moving and the perfect reflections of Easter during lockdown. A reading of each poem can also be found on youtube. Palm Sunday The Unmade Bed The absent, the loss from this unmade bed A mirror-like soul threw the hot blanket back The shape of a naked skull here in the pillow Soft feathers that smell of human-like sweat The stains of bodies and twisted dreams White sheets that one day become a shroud Pale fluid from acts of love or lost life Fevered dreams that claw in the belly of time. The mattress that never can yield to the weight For all of the tossing and tide of the night The tepid, rejected limbs chills in morn The moment of lust, that leaves hollow a breath The dog that would sleep at the end, if allowed The morning that only comes, after collapse. Rising like ghost Lazarus, barely alive And yet, I am known even in this half state Tuck me in warm, fill bottle and cup In your soft lullaby I sleep calm like that dog, The unmade, is made, only in Christ I am such a bed until sleep becomes death. Death of a Tree In root and core, the rot runs deep In peeling bark, in fruitless bud, in brown mould leaf What form could take this sin and weep A tree, a tree a blameless thing In blacken branch, it’s cursed word A touch that steals all youthful gifts Damned by all sweetness known in man In human form, in Genesis. Low, low the branches bow The weight of these rejected hopes Spring forth from death those gleaming jewels In sinless dance, in seasons blessed. Holy Tuesday Prayer To prayer we drift in sleep, foam, feathers, snow. A divine blanket of air grows fat about us. And there we begin to sweat, dragged on tides to skies of pricked gold. A warm sunshine, blinding eyes and caressing cheeks. Then like a ripe egg, we crack open and everything we are flows … in a swollen river of communion, breaking its banks. In drowning, we learn to swim in our calling. Holy Wednesday Tools A hammer to breakdown a door a lens to observe the world a chisel to carve across sand to wear down a wool Like wind, like rain, like sound an axe to cut out Deadwood oil to grease old wheels a flask of hot tea for the bad days a pair of comfortable shoes some oil, some bread, some wine glue to fix broken hearts ink to tattoo his name on their skin a whistle to play a good tune scales to weigh out my time love, faith and limitless hope Maundy Thursday The Flex Combs of wire, tearing and dragging the flex That breaking sound is all about your parting Long years of love, forgotten in rage Exhaustion and somewhere between, a child One pulling apart, eased by thick lanolin The other clinging on for dear life As oiled fibres slip though fingers There is somewhere between, a child But what is softer and stronger than the flex? The child forgotten, the lamb betrayed? Hold fast dear friends, these times will pass Remember the child. Remember the lamb Carding out the thorns, smoothing the flex Making it good, to be weaved again Weaving now, a newness in love He will give you his fleece, if you ask Good Friday In Deep Wounds In deep wounds lies our Lord. In stardust, in trees, in the gutter. In the words, ‘it is good to be here.’ In the little death of dogs, in the mighty death of Mother. In the baby that did not breath, in the birthday cake and the cold shoulder. In deep wounds like salt and dirt lies his promise. He will come, looked for like Christmas snow … forgotten like old razor blades. Ever glorious and shouting out a good tune. He will come without warning withered and old … shiny and new. In deep wounds, I will see him reflected in the bowl of a spoon, a cut lip, a lost love. In days, in prayer, in pus and earth, in the empty cot, in the stone cold tomb. In rot. In deep wounds like sleep, hot and naked, a retreat. Forgotten, unlooked for, forgiven, complete. In dreams of death, in a light footed dance, in breath and water. A blood stained sheet. In a splinter or a long hard week. In deep wounds he will come and seek us out. In deep wounds he will wait for our return In deep wounds like balm, like cooling ice lies our Lord … The Christ. Saturday Vigil Mary’s Lament Where is my heart? Lost, lost lost in a dark hidden and lost Forgotten in din buried deep in the fog cracked in the stone alone, alone Where is my Lord? Silent and calm Waiting in rain in grass that is long found found found in my pain in cycles of loss lost lost my heart a blackbird, wings beating hard where is my heart held like a lamb crucified, stabbed with each little death lost lost In this night of grief tears in the tides where is my love lost from my sight Where is my heart? the heart of the Christ held safe but not won lost in this night Lost lost Easter Sunday Silver Webs In cracks between sliver webs, spy holes between dew and light. His whole looks back, in unblinking eyes, soft, soft, endless sight. Christ Jesus King, in the gaps not the sparkled thread. In the broken wings of dried flies caught, drunk and dead. Held in his gaze, eyes fixed and riveted mine As a fly in the web, I am mesmerized by a journey divine Gently he bundles me in sliver twine, swaddled as a babe And bleeds me of all my sins, as he once bravely bled Suspended I sleep, cradled in hands and wrists that weep Awaiting my resurrection, to rise again to his need In faith of his people, to carry like stones their pain I bleed out, as fly to spider, in a raging desire to live again. Easter Monday Formation Does it start in the marrow? In the bones, in cells? In grey matter or in the gut? Are we blocks of stone, carved by Christ? Or are we thrown, slippery as a newborn on a wheel? It is when we begin to delight in the little. The specks, the light in leaves, the piping hot cup of tea It is when we fall in love with the world Slowly sinking into joy and pain, like comfortable sleep In a happy day, when gratitude becomes a tear When the soft scent of rose and wood smoke is in the air We are formed in love, turned inside out by it We know the suffering of withdrawal, when we return Taking only a tiny speck of the gold with us. And the knowledge that at any moment we can turn back. For he waits for us, eternally.
