It has been a while since I have posted any new poetry here. This is not because I am not still writing, rather because the way that poetry allows me to explore ideas (which this blog is primarily about) fluctuates.
Today however, I am going to share a brand new poem, which makes some rather profound theological statements – ones that I know many of my friends will find troubling.
I’m not going to explore them here – at least, not yet. I am not even sure that I agree with them all just now.
This is one of the gifts of poetry – it can become it’s own voice, its own person. As well as a way of exploring then externalising, poetry can go further than this, and be part of a dialogue even with its author.
The dialogue does not even need to find agreement. It might be possible to hold more than one perspective – as if our theological constructs are just different poems.
It is in this space that this poem sits just now. In committing the words to keyboard and screen, I am able to stand back and consider them as if they were not mine.
Except they are mine. In writing them, I was consciously breaking through some barriers into places that feel new.
.
Christus
.
Not Messiah, but memory –
You are what we once forgot.
Woodsmoke.
A curve of earth
Towards completeness.
.
Not God, but goodness –
You are what we left behind.
Compost.
A fecundity of light
Awakes this forest floor.
.
Not Risen, but wide open –
We are not just the sum of skin.
Mycelium.
An animal whom, despite of evolution
Finds value most in kindness.
.
Not Saviour but revelator –
We search the stars in vain.
Insemination.
A pulse pounds insistently when
There should by rights be silence
.
CG March 2025
this fragile tent 