Joanna’s watercolour ‘Creation’
resonates with her poem,
in the sense of being full of light
In writing poetry, largely about science and faith, inevitably the subject of light is never far from one’s thoughts: the wonder of it; the effects of it; the way our eyes and brain process it and the vital part it plays in the lives of all of us who are blessed with vision (even if that may be somewhat impaired). Given that preoccupation, it was not surprising that when Joanna, the author of the following poem gave me a copy of her book ‘A Reflection of God’, whilst we were recently both on retreat at Launde Abbey in Leicestershire, this caught my eye.
'Sunlight on Stone' by Joanna Tulloch.
The Spring sun
falling on a stone,
revealing its brightness
more than it can
yet bring it warmth;
but it is sunlight
from an unclouded sky,
and even the stone
can show it and reflect it,
even the stone
begins to shine.
How many years
of human language
would you have to teach it
before this stone
would start to speak?
Yet it takes only sunlight
and a little silence,
it takes but a moment
to make it expressive:
even the stone
is taught to talk.
There was a stone
heavy and forbidding
barring the entrance
to the tomb in the garden
where he’d been laid to rest;
they feared
to have to move it
but the light of glory
had already flung it wide:
even the stone
made way for life.
Am I a stone
that these things
fail to move me,
that my tears
don’t flow for you
and for the others
you died and rose to save?
Teach me to reflect you,
to make your light my language,
and even this stone
shall shine, and speak, and live.
© Joanna Tulloch
You can buy a copy of Joanna’s book, ‘Reflections of God’ directly from the publishers via this link HERE
You can buy a copy of Joanna’s book, ‘Reflections of God’ directly from the publishers via this link HERE
