In the Sixth Month (poem)

I’m afraid that I, calm like a candle,
"Do not be afraid, Mary, am a fuse, a muffled firework,
that one day I’ll go off, his kingdom will never end
and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month
and peel the skin, the arms of all who huddled close—

I’m afraid that I, with the gospel on my lips,
We know that the whole creation has been groaning
as in the pains of childbirth, am buckled with a rusty sword
Not only so, that one day I’ll arrive on pregnant shores
but we ourselves groan inwardly
and when I leave there will be little more—
as we wait eagerly for our adoption,
the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved." Then the angel left her.
May it be so.

God Reigns

Two snakes, a sailor, a monk who was said to pray the Lord's Prayer in his crib, and the image of a woman.  These are the five friends of Godric, "one for each of Jesu's wounds, and Godric bears their mark still on what's left of him as in their time they all bore his on them.  What's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds?"

Godric, who lives alone and walks the earth barefoot like Jesus to calvary.  They call him a saint, who wonders what life could have been had he walked different roads, who sees the peoples' deaths before they die, and prays that God might ease their suffering.  This is his ministry:  prayer, and this is his prayer:  memory.  Memory is his curse and the telling of his memory his ministry.

Godric, the little Christ who prays,

Gentle Jesu, Mary's son, be thine the wounds that heal our wounding.  Press thy bloody scars to ours that thy dear blood may flow in us and cleanse our sin.

Be thou in us and we in thee that Godric, Gillian, Ailred, Mouse and thou may be a woundless one at last.  And even Reginald if thy great mercy reach so far.

In God's name Godric prays.

Amen.