I measure life out in flowering bushes
Walking through chines of rhododendron
Looking for God, finding girls
Taking the push chair into the flower house
Escaping to be alone
Walking in the morning of birdsong
Finding my way home
In Southwark Cathedral
Hour before service
The jugs need filling
The candles trimming
The flowers checked
The choristers practiced
We wait for God
My father died
My sister, long, slow death
The layering of grief
In the colours of the window I am back on the heath
The layering of souls, petals
The benches of faith
We wait for God
Redemption the only word in English
You cannot live without
The only word you cannot live up to
The advent of household chores
The scent of pollen
The depth of green
The feeling of colour in breeze closes my pores
So much and so sublime
In these flowers, in this church
The curve of the stone
The line of the leaf
The light through the grass
The sun on the Hepworth
The sound of the voices
The song of the birds
Practicing their glorifications in divine spaces
Warning their chicks not to fall to earth
Between the sound
The light
The leaf
The space
The faith
The colour
The shape
The breeze
The prayer
The grass
The earth
Sits our idea of God and our redemption, always that word
An idea of God, so close sometimes I can touch it
Then it disappears
But now I am not alone
Dadhood 