Our Lady of Sorrows

Blessed Mother,


You knew

not only how to carry

your own deep sorrows with dignity

but to make room

to hold the sorrows of another.


You were not afraid

of annihilation


Not alarmed

by a fresh dismemberment.


You were the centrifugal force

of love

that holds the accelerating universe

in a wide offering

of ever-expanding joy

amidst the pain.


You are not destroyed.


Wholly identified

with the four directions of the Holy Cross

there is no place your passion does not reach

because you stand with Him.


And we who dare

in microscopic measures

to accept the task


desire to stand

in fresh alignment

with the one who chose


to receive

Everything.



Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, 15th September 2012

On watching Marion and Renee dancing for Our Lady and on hearing Cheryl sing

Such perfect symmetry of the hearts' alliance

Fluid and freeing

And full of joy



The body is moving with the life of the Spirit

Blithely revealing the passions of the soul

Here on the running grass

In the open air

Somewhere

Between kenosis and fulfilment

Somewhere

Between loss and enlargement of the heart’s gift

Somewhere

Between daily dullness in the earth’s shadow

And the bliss of offering in heaven’s light


The dancers speak for us with their fragile limbs


Leap into ecstasy

Reach into kindness

Fall into sadness


Tenderly reminding us

That we in our strange wanderings

Are beautiful to Someone

Somewhere.






Sarah de Nordwall, 8th September 2012, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin 2012

On Hearing of an Artist at the Celtic Festival of Acadia

The artist cut one Maple Tree

And made of it nine instruments


He will bring them once

Together again

For a single night to play.


And who would not wait with sacred longing

For the playing of the nine

From the broken tree?


Who would not hope from such a moment

A taste of the soul’s wild ecstasy?


The Maple Tree sings in many voices

A song cut from a single heart


And peace

And balance

And practicality

All are surpassed in this final

Art.


Sweetness of utter intoxication.

Given

And open, surrendered and free.


The Maple divided is now resurrected.


The song of the nine

Is the Song of the Three.





Sarah de Nordwall September 6th 2012