Author: Ian Trimnell

STARLINGS IN WINTER by Mary Oliver Chunky and noisy, but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wire and instantly they are acrobats in the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, they swing over buildings, dipping and rising; they float like one stippled star that opens, becomes for a...

TALKING TO MY SON BEFORE SLEEP by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “Which is bigger,” he asks me, “the ocean or sky,” and I want to tell him the heart, which even today has been practicing vastness, is learning to say yes in new languages, learning to stretch beyond the center, beyond the lips, learning to be more...

UNTITLED by Leonard Cohen Any system you contrive without us will be brought down We warned you before and nothing that you built has stood Hear it as you lean over you blueprint Hear it as you roll up your sleeve Hear it once again Any system you contrive without us will be brought down You...

SONNET 139 by Edna St. Vincent Millay I must not die of pity; I must live; Grow strong, not sicken; eat, digest my food, That it may build me, and in doing good To blood and bone, broaden the sensitive Fastidious pale perception: we contrive Lean comfort for the starving, who intrude Upon them with our...

Prayer for the Day “In my journeying with you, may I never lose my sense of direction, never lose sight of the landmark towards which I travel. And should cloud or rain obscure my vision, may I draw closer to you, so that my feet may tread in your footsteps, your words be my encouragement, and...

ALL OUT FOR GOD Sunday 30th May: Go Barefoot On behalf Of The Persecuted “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” (Hebrews 13: 3) RELEASE INTERNATIONAL is an inter-denominational Christian ministry working through local church partners in...

THOSE DANCING DAYS ARE GONE by W.B. Yeats Come, let me sing into your ear; Those dancing days are gone, All that silk and satin gear; Crouch upon a stone, Wrapping that foul body up In as foul a rag: I carry the sun in a golden cup. The moon in a silver bag. Curse as...

FRAGMENT by Sappho The moon has set In a bank of jet That fringes the Western sky, The pleiads seven Have sunk from heaven And the midnight hurries by; My hopes are flown And, alas! alone On my weary couch I lie. Good evening and welcome to Evening Prayer That this evening may be holy, good...

O ME! O LIFE! by Walt Whitman O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean,...

WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR by Rabindranath Tagore Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;...

TREES by Mark Haddon They stand in parks and graveyards and gardens. Some of them are taller than department stores, yet they do not draw attention to themselves. You will be fitting a heated towel rail one day and see, through the louvre window, a shoal of olive-green fish changing direction in the air that swims...

FOUR IN THE MORNING by Wislawa Szymborska The hour from night to day. The hour from side to side. The hour for those past thirty. The hour swept clean to the crowing of cocks. The hour when earth betrays us. The hour when wind blows from extinguished stars. The hour of and-what-if-nothing-remains-after-us. The hollow hour. Blank,...

The Spiritual Canticle By  John of the Cross O soul, most beautiful among all creatures, you who so long to know the place where your Beloved is, so as to seek him and become one with him, now it has been stated: you yourself are the home in which he dwells. Here is a reason to be...

The Ascent of Mount Carmel [Dark Night of the Soul] By  John of the Cross On a dark night, Inflamed by love-longing— O exquisite risk!— Undetected I slipped away. My house, at last, grown still. Secure in the darkness, I climbed the secret ladder in disguise— O exquisite risk!— Concealed by the darkness. My house, at last,...

SNOWDROPS by Louise Glück Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know what despair is; then winter should have meaning for you. I did not expect to survive, earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect to waken again, to feel in damp earth my body able to respond again, remembering after so long how...