Fire and Wine
A poem for the Feast of Pentecost
And then it happened...
We hung around for safety
above ground level
the clamouring souls outside
a packed embolus
fain clutching our feet
as if they craved live contact
with celebrity
and sought a fragment of him
we could not furnish
that desert instant
the Word became illumined
sparks ran among the
stubble of our deadlocked heart
bursting occlusion
We recalled the phrase
God is a consuming fire
We had thought it meant
wrath; titanic sacrifice
on our part, not his
Holocausts were done!
The quality of mercy
much spoken of was
now eternally unstrained
its current flowing
This was the God of
Shadrach and his noble breed
passing through furnace
defying wild destruction
unseared and annealed
It was the God of
Moses and the burning bush
bridling lakes of fire
of brimstone and Gehenna
passionate in peace
Divine transfusion
filling us with sentience!
We rose up as one
the livid fear doused and gone
We had to tell it!
So high on rapture
we gave the false impression
the wine of Bacchus
irrigated our parched veins
Mistaken vintage!
...at the still point, there the dance is.”
—Burnt Norton - T. S. Eliot
About Rosy
Rosy Cole was born and educated in the Shires of England and now lives on the West Sussex coast. A professional writer for thirty years, she has worked as a Press Officer and Publisher's Reader and is a member of the Society of Authors (UK), the Historical...
Connections
Causes Rosy Cole Supports
World Vision, International Prison Outreach, Salvation Army, Emmaus Project, Poor Clares, DogsTrust, BUAV (against animal testing) WWT (Wildfowl &...
Rosy’s Favorite Books
Restoration - Rose Tremain, Rites of Passage - William Golding, The Waves - Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf, Sunset Song - Lewis Grassic...
Pentecost is my favorite church feast
Hello Rosy,
I love your poems. I don't always know how to respond to them, but this one talks to me especially your "mistaken vintage" line.
I have a postcard from Napa Valley (I always try to cite my sources - :) ) that reads:
Water divides people, wine unites them.
Water is what unites people not wine. I like wine, but people treat it like a material good to incite envy now and it is what divides people.
Always wanted the gift of tongues, I love learning how to read languages, but don't have too many opportunities to speak them except French.
Ruth :)
That's lovely to hear, Ruth,
That's lovely to hear, Ruth, on both counts. I'm touched by your kind comments.
Sadly, Pentecost is the most misapprehended Feast and, in the UK, Whitsuntide hasn't been a bank holiday for several decades. Instead, we now have a secular Spring Bank Holiday observed on the last weekend of May.
I think the first recorded miracle of Jesus, the turning of water into wine at the wedding in Cana has deep, deep connotations that were realised at Pentecost.
Like you, I love the Romance languages. In Europe, we have no excuse for not gaining a degree of facility with them.
I do wish you luck with your new travelogue. You're doing exactly what we were advised at a Society of Authors seminar last week - putting content out there - all of it! The publishing revolution train hasn't reached a platform yet...but it's on the way and nothing can stop it.
Rosy:)
:)
You're welcome Rosy. Your poetry is so beautiful. Keep writing, Ruth