The stones hold still around us, as they have
for countless generations long since gone.
The oak and slate which shelter chancel, nave
and sanctuary, enabling our songs
to rise up as the autumn evening darkens,
like all that lies beyond this place, grow dim.
The candles flicker, echoing the sparkle
of hidden stars, and distant bombs. Within
these walls we are both separate and connected
with all who long for peace this holy night,
with all who search for shelter, unprotected
from the falling tears of war that blur their sight.
We see them now in our imaginations
though we cannot imagine what their life
must be. We offer prayers of supplication
on their behalf and hold them in their grief.
On this solemn day of deep remembrance,
in a world that seems so full of dark and cold
we hold on to their memory like the embers
of a bonfire, glowing with light and hope and gold
and as we fan those flames we are reminded
that we are called to keep that fire ablaze
and shining bright, that others too may find it
and in its warmth and light live out their days
in peace. In peace. In peace. And not in pieces.
To see God’s image torn apart by fear
in hospitals and fields and camps and beaches
and only pray it doesn’t happen here
within these sacred walls that for a thousand
years have held the sanctity of life
yet they are we and we are they, and shrouded
by the mists of war we join them in their strife.
In this safe place, this holy place, this shelter,
this refuge from the world outside we find
that in all our magnificats and psalters
the sorrows of the world are brought to mind
and held before us like a candle, flickering
in God’s presence where it all belongs
continuing its long, slow, healing. Quickening
our spirits as we raise our evensongs.

Birch and beech link arms across my path.
Like bride and groom they make their lychgate shelter
while oak’s confettied leaves fly helter skelter
in the wind.  Above I hear the laughter
of squirrels sharing chestnut sacrament,
ready to give anointing from on high
to unsuspecting laity, but I
am wise to their irreverent intent
for I am, after all, their parish priest
and they, like every blade of grass, my flock.
As I process crows scatter like a prayerbook
congregation after Eucharist.
A pair of ravens pass episcopally
overhead.  They share with me the cure
of souls in this peculiar parish corner,
so filled with jubilance and melancholy
as all that lives within it strives to be
transfigured slowly into holy ground.
I pause, enraptured by this most profound
realisation.  In my mind mycelial
connections start to form, joining the roots
that flow from these parochial woods with those
of rainforest and tundra, kelp and mangrove
and all life on this fragile world, whose beauty
is sustained, renewed, depleted, every day,
transforming the ground beneath our roughshod feet
and hallowing earth’s tender skin with sweet
composted incense.  As I leave I say
a whispered benediction knowing I,
not they, have had the blessing here. I move
from sanctuary to chancel, nave, then through
the gates, and out beneath the opening sky.

© Rich Clarkson, October 2024

I was performing a concert of my songs and poems at St Michael-on-Greenhill Church in Lichfield, and had some time beforehand to wander around the stunning Churchyard there. I wrote this poem while I was there and read it at the concert that evening.

Stones rise unsteadily from teeming ground,
the order that they used to give long gone
replaced by flowing jubilant growth, profound
reminders that even in death, life goes on.
Their slate-hewn epitaphs hold hints of those
who walked before us on this hallowed hill,
What hidden wisdom lies within these rows?
What might their stories long to teach us still?
St Michael, so the ancient stories tell,
stands guard over the faithful at their end.
Now Ash, Birch, Hawthorn, Bramble join as well
the company of angels, watchful friends.
And we, upon this life-filled ground tonight
Are bathed with them in heaven’s unseen light

(c) Rich Clarkson, August 2024

Awake, I track the rhythms of the rain.
It moves, pulsates, across the anxious canvas.
My heart lifts as it fades away but then
it rebuilds, a crescendo in the blackness.
The wind joins in. Its harmony enhances
the theme that rain has introduced. They play
together, old companions in these dances,
yet each night there is something new to say.
Now other voices join them in their sonic
experiments. A bark. A siren’s call.
A distant crash. A gunshot? This symphonic
composition holds me captive in its thrall
until, at last, night’s symphony gives way
to fragile, fractured sleep, and quiet day.

© Rich Clarkson, August 2024

I sometimes worry that I try too hard
to organise or plan my life of prayer,
to go against my nature, disregard
my instincts, stifle that creative flair
in search of rules that help others be free
but leave a lingering taste of guilt for me.
But then, when I reflect again upon it
I start to wonder if I’ve got it wrong.
Is it like the structure of a sonnet
or the chord progression of a song
Which hold within them endless permutation,
making space for joyful improvisation.
Construction not constriction, comes with seeing
prayer, not as what we do,
but rather as a way of being.

(c) Rich Clarkson, April 2024

Written on my return from Clergy Conference

The floodlit church rests lightly on the hill,
The smell of woodsmoke lingers in the air,
An owl cries out for company, a chill
breeze whispers furtive secrets not to share.
Inside the house the television flickers,
while upstairs restless children quietly sleep.
The lightbulbs brighten walls adorned with pictures
of loved ones and of memories.  This deep
deep ordinariness is so familiar
and yet tonight it is somehow imbued
with poetry, and rhythm, and the stillness
that marked these last days of beatitude.
Like waves retreating from a crowded shore
Returning brings new riches to explore.

© Rich Clarkson, April 2024

Written during Evening Prayer, Wednesday 24th April

It is a most profound and precious thing
to take the very fabric of the air
in all its unseen chaos, and to bring
it gently into resonance with prayer.
To take our disparate voices and unite
them, high or low, equivocal or fervent,
reverberating in the evening light,
The atmosphere itself becoming servant.
There’s something sacramental in the way
that such a simple act can be transfigured,
that every time we fill our lungs and pray
the universe itself is reconfigured.
Using just the breath that we are given
this room, this place, this world, is raised to heaven

© Rich Clarkson, April 2024

They stand outside the window
of the chapel every day
As the bread and the wine are taken
and the people gather to pray

They stand outside the window
as songs and hymns are sung
And watch us through the glass and stone
doing what must be done

They stand outside the window,
rooted and grounded in prayer
Eating the bread of sunlight
and the wine of rain-filled air

They stand outside the window
singing to heaven above:
“We thank you for counting us worthy
to stand in your presence and serve”

© Rich Clarkson, April 2024

This poem is based on some powerful reflections from Bishop Michael on Psalm 84 at our Clergy Conference.

~~~~~

We start, as all things do, with our becoming –
like Swallow chicks emerging from the nest,
and from that moment we are moving, running,
searching, seeking, longing to find rest.
We soar in joy-full flight above the hills,
And stumble through the valley carved by tears,
We find our way, and lose our path, and still
We wander, and we wonder, at the years.
Yet within that elation and despairing
There is a voice that calls us ever on
Towards our movement’s end, and to our sharing
In courts where even sparrows finds a home.
How lovely is the dwelling of the blessed
Where we shall share in that long promised rest.

© Rich Clarkson, April 2024

The way the story tends to go is this:
The snake, or owl, or sheep, or some poor creature
While going about it’s day-to-day existence
Finds itself turned into something deeper.
No longer can it be itself alone,
It has to be a metaphor for us
Of cunning, wisdom maybe, or be known
For blindly following. ‘Twas ever thus.
And yet, from time to time the tables turn,
And metaphor itself becomes alive,
Takes flesh and blood and, somehow, starts to earn
It’s place, and with its fellow creatures thrive.
From our shared struggle over dark and sin
The life of George’s Dragon does begin.

© Rich Clarkson, April 2024

“Teach us how to pray” we ask, and yet
Is prayer not somehow deep within our skin?
Our breathing? aching? hoping? We forget
That we are made of dust and prayer, and in
That glorious strangeness we are held in turn
By threads of purest prayer that catch the light,
The heavenly light, that makes the darkness burn
As we, with patchwork beauty, quench the night.
And yet, although the fabric of our being
Is in itself an act of prayer, we still
Need help to see ourselves, and in our seeing
To pay attention to the maker’s skill
Which weaves our words with substance as we say
That ancient prayer “Lord, Teach us how to pray”

© Rich Clarkson, April 2024

I’ve walked this path two dozen times before,
I know it well. I know each twist and turn,
each weathered rock, each storm-blown tree, each sand-
filled rut that threatens ankles unaware.
And yet today I walk on foreign ground,
transfigured unexpectedly by ferns
disguising all the old familiar tracks
and wrapping up the landscape like a shroud.
I try to stay with time-worn trails but soon
I find myself drawn down – against my will –
a channel carved by long dried winter rains
among the whites and browns and reds of birch
trees, butterflies, and other alien things.
I tread with care. I am in their world now.
A world of ant-filled cities, in the shade
of log-pile Matterhorns and catacombs.
An airport, long abandoned by the fox,
is bustling as the bees set off on long-
haul flights, and hurry back with heavy bags.
The channel deepens, I grow smaller still
until, at long last, I am one of them.
The undergrowth around is filled with life,
and death, and death-filled life, and I go on
beneath the ferns, the oak tree, gnarled and whorled,
and deep into the earth, into myself.
I thought I knew this place, I thought I knew
myself, but I am humbled by the weight,
the sheer un-human weight of all that is.
And then, just as I feel the wildness pull
me down, I’m blocked by tarmac underfoot.
The horses skitter, squirrels rage, at this
colossus apparating from the green.
Bewildered, reeling, I, with leaden steps,
relearn to navigate this strange new world,
a world I thought I knew. But now I know
that nothing that I know is as it seems
and, even now, the ferns grow on my dreams.

Rich Clarkson, July 2023