Bible poems
Liturgical response
Creation thrums with BeingAnd peals the Word — 'I am'.We sometimes remember To whisper the antiphon, 'We are'.
Vivien Arnold
Food of love
'I don't give a fig', says Adam to Eve.She is silent thinkingof the small orifice on the fruit a narrow passage for the fig wasp to enter; set down eggs; pollinate the flowery fig.Bloom and ripen. She reveals none of this to Adamwho shields his manhood with a leaf from the fig;seething at his ejection from the Garden.
Eve isn't sorry that she bitinto the temptation of the fruit; found its secret self. She never forgot that first taste of paradise; brought the knowledge with herbeyond the garden into the world of weeds and thorns.Of course Adam put it about — it was the snake's clever lies that had beguiled her. She was deceived (he said). Eve knew better. She had bloomed. Ripened; tasted truth.
Moya Pacey
Jacob and Esau
Those twins wrestling inside me —faith and doubt
twins so alikeso opposite
Is there a pointof equilibrium —
a place wherethe sea becomescalmat the biddingof an Other?
Janette Fernando
Song of a deaf poet
When you see me all alone,I hope you understandthat though my ears don't hear a thingthe spirit rules the man,
and the harp of David dwells in me,his strum is my command,though ostracised from crowded rooms,I dance on desert sands.
Damian Balassone
An exodus of crosses
They line our country roadstriggering a fleeting pityin a blur of wood and flowersas we speed by —the crosses meant to mourn loved oneskilled by machines like the ones we're sitting in.Isn't their number increasingto a similar degree as the numberof prayers is decreasingand the exodus from our churches continues?
Even though the faith in the crucifiedand resurrected Christ is diminishingthe waves of crosses to mournso many broken bodies, broken dreamsare towering higher and higheras if the Red Sea of our helplessnesswas swelling and never partingto let a ray of hope shine through.
Frank Joussen
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild
Watch me rise!Snickering cowards.Obese priests.Manicured politicians.Oil-stained soldiers.
Watch me rise.You who crushed me.You who dancedwhile my feet were nailed.You who drank to my health.
Watch me rise.Watch me walk from the tomblike a vengeful angel.Watch my eyes.I have come for you.
I have come for you.
Stephen Daughtry
He calls her name
he calls her name among the twisted olivesshadowing the tombsealed within grief she hearsonly a stranger's kindness
Anne Benjamin
Born and raised Britain, Vivien Arnold has lived in Canberra for over 40 years. In addition to sacred poetry she writes secular and satirical poems, stories and plays and composes liturgical