Septuacentenary of a Parish Church

scenes from the Passion 
in an Easterly procession
line a Norfolk lane
and heavens above

turn heaven-lent snowdrops
through an orientation
to daffodils of fire…
through death
we remember 
with bread
poppies
wine
music
good 
words
thoughts
deeds
to 
LOVE

A real communion with infinite repercussions
Bringing all Faiths together like beads on one string
(Though whether preventing, or after, a Flood, God knows.)
I am Not. You and I are not We but One.

Let there be:

Light broad-churched in through
angel wing mirror-rainbowed
clean glass, open door

ONE
heaven-blue earth-green blood-stained 
eastern window;

An orientation; a turn to the East.

This Early English new build that went up all in one go
(The Tower taking a tad longer) as English emerged
From Norman French as the national language. And
Structurally stable for seven hundred years.
Unusual. Amid a green and pleasant, wooded farmland
(Non-Satanic mills!) well pastored, well wardened,
Well furnished with flowers, cheerful, friendly,
On a well-lit, airy hill and reached by idyllic lanes. A
Congregation with an ear for a Book of Common Prayer,
An uncommon hymn and a warm word of welcome. This
Is the heart of the matter. This has lasted. This is eternal.

Genesis of a Church (Fring All Saints AD 1330)

Genesis of A Church, Fring, 1330 AD

 

 

On this higher ground

Let us house an altar

Where the Word may resound

Through time, prayer and psalter.

 

On this heavenly spur

Let us grow a tower

Where the great stir of Easter

May bud, leaf and flower.

 

He cam also stille

Ther his moder was

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the gras.[1]

 

Defeats, factions, debts,

A weak tyrant king’s

Gone the way of all flesh

Burns for higher things[2].

 

In these emerald trees

Lifting monks’ eyes above

Earthy labour, dis-ease,

Let us sing divine love.

 

He cam also stille

To his modres bowr

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the flowr.

 

In these sandcastle days,

A boy on the throne[3],

Let us hold fast and raise

Firm foundations of stone.

 

Let here be Light

To summer the heart

Through spring, heyday, fall, blight,

Candling the dark.

 

He cam also stille

Ther his moder lay

As dew in Aprylle

That fallyt on the spray.

 

Let here be stillness

On strips, hill, vale, farm,

Green pastures and waters

That flow like a Psalm.

 

Frea’s[4] folk, we are grass, bone,

We come to pass;

But soul-fashioned stone,

We build to last.

 

 

 

 

---

[1] The refrains in italics are from an anonymous mediaeval lyric about the Annunciation.

[2] Edward II, murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327, his reign defined by usurping nobles and humiliating defeats in Scotland.

[3] Edward III, heir at 14, 18 when he assumed direct control in 1330. 

[4] The place name Fring is according to the ONC “probably ‘ingas’ (the settlement of) the family or followers of a Saxon named Frea.” That his name may be a nod to the Norse goddess Freya (from whence ‘Friday’ ‘Freya’s day) is a poetic reminder that churches were typically built on sites sacred to earlier faiths. The beautiful natural setting on a low hill overlooking a timeless rural England is strikingly numinous.

Man Friday: 25% Extra Large Easter Triptych

1. A Jolly Good Friday

Jesus was an Englishman,
The Son of Grace (W.G.)
Cured 99 limbs on the village green
And a leper before the Last Tea.

Jesus remained a gentleman
Though the crowd’s game wasn’t cricket,
Carried His cross with stiff upper lip
And was only politely anti-Semitic.

2. Easter Saturday: 0-1, 2-1, 2-2.

The team I follow is full of Jesses who think they’re God’s gift, diving Christians
and Daniels up against Lions

A voice in the faithless crowd calls “Judas”
As our transferred ex-Saviour applauds ex-fans.

Nil-one, man down, the game as dead
As a frozen church, the comeback beckons.

On thawing cold feet, we are glory glory singing
It’s all worth it, after all, and then it isn’t.

3. Sunday: Petering Out

Nailed upside down at dawn,
The cockerel crowing with the crowd,
I tried to speak up for You,
"Love Can Turn The World Around."

Gravel-voiced but choked
Out of a throat of clay
I threw my word of rock
Too hard, too hard, away.

Now across this sheer water,
A crystal light
Turns and returns
Upon memory's tide.

My father is fishing
Still waters at sunrise.
He turns and winks:
I fear no evil when he is with me.

What voice sounding sure
In the depths of my heart
Drowns the distant breaking
Of a shell's lost cry?


4. Easter Mundane

Nothing happens.
I don't feel a thing.
The rock doesn't roll.
The angels don't sing.

Good Friday isn't bad.
Saturday hangs on
A Sunday that rises
But not for long.

The hiker at the crossroads
Asks for directions
Down unbridled Ways
To non-consummations.

The cyclist’s windy map
Winds in endless rotation
Of his pre-booked, pre-cooked
Predestination.

The City get hammered.
I don't feel a thing.
The cock can't crow
And no angels sing.



Notes: This little sequence came out of the Unsunny Easter of 2003 originally. The only consistency with 2011 - and now 2013 - is my team's Easter form. It's an effort to do a modern version of the Renaissance Easter painting in which all the Jewish characters looked Italian, here a triptych. The impulse of 'Easter Mundane' is that post holiday void which is also the post-Christian void. I read an Easter Saturday 1972 poem (by Tom Leech, pictured) many years ago in which a crowd of pub-punters talk about a 'transferred' player who, the reader gradually twigs, is Jesus. The picture shows Tom earlier this year in India, one of the few holy lands I got to before him. 'Petering Out' fuses St Peter's story - he asked to be crucified upside down as contrition for that legendary denial - with a rare and precious memory of fishing with my father at Shearwater Lake near Longleat, Wilts, one Sunday morning about a hundred years ago.