Saturday 26 March 2016

Easter Day: Poetry & Painting : Emmaus



The Servant Girl at Emmaus
(A Painting by Velázquez)
She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his—the one
who had looked at her, once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?
Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
Hands he'd laid on the dying and made them well?
Surely that face—?
The man they'd crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive?
Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don't recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen, absently touching
           the wine jug she's to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,
swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure. 

Denise Levertov (1923–1997)
For Levertov's poetry, see Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey (editors), with an Introduction by Eavan Boland,The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov (New York: New Directions, 2013), 1063pp.

Friday 25 March 2016

Good Friday

Following the service at St Bartholemew, Holland on sea, here are the two paintings so that you can see their colours: 
Chagall : White Crucifixion  1938
Chagall's White Crucifixion Revisited  2015 :

"Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing " Luke 23