Posted by Holly Ordway in New poetry | 4 Comments
A Christmas Poem
I am posting here a poem that I wrote on Christmas Day, 2011.
The occasion of this poem was that I went to the Christmas morning Eucharist at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. My flight had only gotten in at seven that morning; I was rather groggy, quite hungry, and extremely cold. The cumulative effect was that some parts of the service were rather blurry but others extraordinarily ‘sharp’: receiving Communion was in the latter category. Hence this poem.
You can click on the title of the poem to hear my reading of it.
St Paul’s Cathedral, London, seen from inside the (blessedly warm) cafe where I had breakfast afterwards.
St Paul’s Cathedral, Christmas Day Eucharist
I am among the last to take my place
(it is pure grace that I am here at all).
Into my outstretched empty hands is placed
A broken half, a fragmentary Host,
To have enough for those who wait behind.
A wisp of bread, and then a sip of wine,
And I return to sit, and wait, and pray.
A benediction; closing hymn; and then
We all disperse. I do not know a soul
In this great city; not a soul knows me,
But those most dear to me are never far,
Are bound up in the web of living prayer.
I step out to another day, new made.
A tiny flake of bread, a taste of wine;
So little, yet so much: eternal God
Who gives Himself within the things He made.
That broken bread, pressed down into my palm:
So light: yet all the gold of earth and all
The works of man would never tip the scale.
If this were all I had, it is enough.
***
Very touching and insightful! Much of what I read that passes for solid, poetic utterance seems to me to be incoherent garbage, to put it bluntly. But this reads and feels genuine, especially the “wisp of bread, and then a sip of wine”. I feel as though I was given a wonderful gift in the body of this poem, Holly (Dr. Ordway?). Thank you! I will coming back to this blog often for more blue jean nourishment! Happy New Year to you and yours!
Thanks! It’s always nice to find that a poem has made a connection, & that a particular image works (the wisp of bread). Happy New Year to you as well!
Excellent. As one who, like you, has been Eucharistically nourished at St Paul’s, this is especially poignant. Thanks.
Thank you, Robert!