My watercolour of several years ago
I had hoped to post a few times whilst we were on Iona, but the dynamics of the excellent writing course run by Kenneth Steven, the internationally known and highly commended Scottish poet, and enjoying the island's beauty meant the blog took a bit of a back seat. So in a belated attempt to recover something of the experience of being on one of the most precious places in our life story, Im posting this 2 weeks late!
The preciousness is due to the island itself but also because of the presence of The Iona Community, a dispersed Christian community with a passion for justice and peace themes. Among the themes is a passionate concern for inclusivity which brings us to the poem and my companion watercolour of the Nunnery on the island. Both prompt the question of why the Abbey, a conspicuously less well built building compared to the Nunnery (in Rosemary Power’s understanding) has been rebuilt, whist the women’ house has been allowed to fall into decay. The poem considers this:
Passing through a doorway here
Is to pass from light to light,
grass to grass or stone to stone:
steps rise in the walls
to non existent landings
or dormitories
of no more substance
than the sublime, island air:
Windows look either out or in,
it makes no difference now
in this once loved home
of holy women.
Yet a mere few hundred steps
along the rise,
the same emptiness
has been restored,
re-vitalised
and made to ring again
with Alleluias, Hosannas
or "Joy and Peace to you"
according to the seasons;
just as the former place
once rang with women’s, love-laced
praise and thanksgiving.
Why so different?
Why does one reverberate
and the other lie entombed
in a pleasant garden,
but otherwise
just a block of ancient walls?
Why this gross inequality
‘twixt sanctuaries?
Could it be, the influence of men
suppressed the significance
of these stones
laid to house women of the Lord?
Could it possibly be
It seemed more proper to men
To restore a house of men?
"Why, Why?"
The stones might justifiably cry.
"Why, Why?
is our heritage the less?"
"Why, Why"
the porches might, for equity, cry,
"Was there something wanting in our holiness?"
Or was it simply
that men rebuilt with little thought
the auld domain of men:
Maybe they felt
their headship, Biblically taught,
entitled Abbey above Nunnery
to rise again.
"Why, Why?"
The angels might for justice cry
"Why, Why?"
Cry faithful women from amidst
the press of heaven's saints.
"Why,Why?"
The Wild Goose might well sigh,
"No gender hierarchy
is any part of our perspective
of holiness!"
There are several other poems about Iona on this blog which you will find in the A to Z Index in the right hand column OR you may care to go on to this poem; IONA: A Special Place in the Cosmos
