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