Phillip Medhurst

A Pilgrimage to Truth

Category: Christianity

Feb 17, 2016

THE LAST ENEMY

image

This is a photo of De Loutherbourg’s original drawing pasted into the Bowyer Bible, a grangerized version of the Macklin Bible.

Bowyer Bible 43.6063/6064. Tail-piece to the first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, vignette with sword slicing through a skull with snake in mouth. See 1 Corinthians 15:26. The print: letterpress in two columns above and on verso. 1800. Inscriptions: Lettered below image with production detail: “P J de Loutherbourg RA inv et del”, “J. Heath direx” and publication line: “Published by T Macklin June 17 1800”. Print made by James Heath. Dimensions: Height: 487 millimetres; width: 390 millimetres.

From a collection of photographs of the Bowyer Bible in Bolton Museum, England curated by Phillip Medhurst.

Phillip Medhurst

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Feb 16, 2016

He Descended into Hell

 

My heart goes down to Hell with him,

Though I must shut my eyes

To what he sees. I fear the dark,

But trail with quiet tread

Lest he looks back,

And weakening, lets me cling to him.

 

For he has work to do within

That senseless void, and I

Must be a hovering thing and hope

That he will see the light

Again, and say

That unmade, made again, is good.

 

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Feb 16, 2016

Mater Dolorosa

 

The pains of childbirth, then of dispossession,

A leaping heart, then steady retrogression

Was all angelic flutters came to bring.

Fair salutations bore a farewell sting.

 

And Death’s dark angel did not pass my door,

But slammed the board, demanding more and more.

My God, you owe this to me: let me see

Wherefore my child has now forsaken me.

 

I want to see him rise to tear the veil,

And borne by angels his kind Father hail,

As his bejewelled banner he unfurls,

His blood its rubies and my tears its pearls.

 

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Feb 16, 2016

The Rood

 

A tree is butchered into beams,

Torn flesh emblematised,

As Jesse’s rod is re-conceived –

Delivered cruciform.

 

Adorned with jewels, hung with gold,

The ark becomes a rood.

A flotsam of humanity

Drowns in a sea of blood.

 

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Feb 11, 2016

Epiphany

 

In inky shadows sages scratched,

Got drunk on mythic wines.

Philosophies were sometimes hatched

From patterns in the signs.

 

Yet three, drawn on by astral light,

With minds as clear as day,

Traversed the sands to catch a sight

Of Truth in swaddled clay.

 

 

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Feb 11, 2016

Icon

 

Though man-proportioned, Christos shrinks

Into His mother’s robe:

Our God kenotic made.

 

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Feb 11, 2016

The Virginal Conception

 

Mary, maid and mother – both –

Conceives divinity.

(Fire, we’re told, does not consume

Her pure virginity).

 

You who tread on holy ground

Put on simplicity.

If He is to be born, God needs

All your complicity.

 

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Feb 11, 2016

Annunciation

 

As swift as eye-of-reason’s blink

Consent, in waiting, parted lips.

As quick as pulse could leap to beat

Of wing, her cry let fly to air

Where word met Word. Thunder unrolled –

Salvation’s sentence in pursuit

Of spirit’s lightning dart to soul

Pre-hushed. Her heart, inviolate still,

Now known, knew all. So All the valley

Filled, and pure Love’s river swelled,

Then brimmed to shed its tide on time.

 

 

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Feb 5, 2016

Eden

 

Since Adam delved and Eva span

Man’s waywardness has spoiled God’s plan.

Disease and death here level all;

Our winding-sheet conceals a Fall.

Though God could make a bush to speak,

A dumb child tells us who is weak:

Though He made His dead Son to eat,

Yet feeding some would be a feat,

For they can neither dig nor spin,

And day by day their limbs grow thin.

Such is the consequence of sin.

 

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Feb 4, 2016

On Reading Psalms and Holy Verses

Proverbs 1:31; 9:5 

If I could grasp at Truth at all,

In a fine feast of hymnody,

I’d eat my fill; but my own fall

Has made of it a parody.

Beyond my reach, it’s only ash

I savour now, from Dead Sea fruit.

My lot bewailed, my teeth I gnash,

As I grub up fell’s shrieking root:

My birthright sold, my mess it makes.

Sin’s fruitage taught what Adam knows:

With swine the prodigal partakes.

I’ll go, then – glean where Wisdom sows.

Sophia’s fare – her wind-doled meat –

Her manna won’t to poison turn.

With new-washed hands I’ll take, I’ll eat,

Refresh my soul, and lesson learn.

Spiced with sagacity Faith’s songs

Will whet anew my appetite:

Then grown upright and done with wrongs

I’ll taste a fresh and chaste delight.

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