<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Psalm 19<\/strong><\/p>\n To the Fathers at the Paris Seminary<\/em> On still days, when this meridian city turned to stone above white cornices \u2013 through orchards\u2019 shade, across the narrow weir cathedral silence, and a leaf-stained light of tropical birds, like a jewel intact. gather to be blessed at journey\u2019s end, Here He is, still. God of the distance <\/p>\n *Psalm 19 was first published in Giving Ground (Singapore: Ethos Books, 2016)<\/em><\/p>\n Theophilus Kwek<\/strong>\u00a0 is the author of three collections, They Speak Only Our Mother Tongue<\/em> (2011), Circle Line<\/em> (2013), and Giving Ground (<\/em>2016). He won the Jane Martin Prize in 2015 and the New Poets Prize in 2016, and was president of the Oxford University Poetry Society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Psalm 19 To the Fathers at the Paris Seminary Jean-Marie Beurel, Priest, Church of the Good Shepherd, Singapore On still days, when this meridian city becomes an image of itself \u2013 masts hung with cloud on the water, sky turned to stone above white cornices \u2013 I lock the church, and, skirting the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11250"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13230,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11250\/revisions\/13230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJean-Marie Beurel, Priest, Church of the Good Shepherd, Singapore<\/em><\/p>\n
\nbecomes an image of itself \u2013 masts
\nhung with cloud on the water, sky<\/p>\n
\nI lock the church, and, skirting the yard, go
\npast the padang with its whinnying horses,<\/p>\n
\nwhere streets run out beyond the forest\u2019s edge
\nand find, just a little north of here<\/p>\n
\nlifted as prayer into the trees\u2019 transept
\nto join branches with the flood and flight<\/p>\n
\nWonder with me: how faith follows sight
\nin this small harbour, where the rich and wrecked<\/p>\n
\nsand\u2019s soft language fills the buttress roots
\nand wears our feet like another land.<\/p>\n
\nand river\u2019s overflow, stars\u2019 luminescence.
\nHarvest\u2019s full, fell hour. First snow.<\/p>\n