The Windsor Knot
This poem is for my friend Paul Windsor. His friendship has been weighty and sustaining, his example at times unsettling but always steadying. He and Barby have lived close to the paradox of strength and weakness, fullness and echoing kenosis, tying things together in public while carrying the twists of private devotion and integrity, always pointing me to Christ. Without Paul, these words would never have been written. They are offered in gratitude for his friendship, the honesty of his life, and the gift of being my brother in the gospel.
empty was the void
and at the word
full six days
fullness burst in ordered revelry:
forming, swarming, breathing, living,
to full rest, full stop.
Ending awaits, at the Word,
full rest, finally
World of rebellion
flooded to emptiness,
an ark heavy with breath
tops swollen seas, sky rent open,
full wrath raging round
a wooden womb afloat
salvation carried in hollows,
freedom lodged in loss.
Full of years,
man and woman,
heads thick with promise,
hands empty of proof.
Soil bare, tents thin,
a long-voided womb.
Dust-cracking laughter:
emptiness undone,
pride unseated,
God full-filling deed in word.
An empty gap,
between angels wings,
on the box, in the tent,
at the centre: weighted glory.
Crowds around rotate,
hearts hollow, as stone.
Cloud by fire filled,
sun and moon,
God of full mercy,
for man, woman, child,
deserted inwardly,
full of doubt
not milk and honey
not mild and homely
wandering, wondering,
dying for full rest.
Landed fully, foot falls failed,
judges faltered, kings fattened.
Altars emptied, prophets leaning in,
people starving thin, a shepherd’s sling
a living thing: unwithering word.
Thrones cracked, temples burned,
swollen vats of violent judgement split
people spilt, scattered and swiped
poured out libatiously
drying out, maturing in the sun.
In return they know a full gracious hand
walls of hope, roads of faithfulness
words in waiting, crowned with love,
shaped whispers of a coming day:
full anticipation.
A sudden swollen untouched womb
a powerful yes, a planted life:
by breath of Him who spoke nebula into place
no room to breathe in birth
no place for settled life;
makes space for shepherds, angels, good full news.
Bethlehem’s hope fills a trough
to feed the darkened hungry world,
shrouded, swaddled, fully against the cold and night.
Grown, Dying, laboured breath,
through teeth, full pulling,
gasping, grasping
Life expiring on the hill of sin.
Sinners pinned, spit and rail
against the light that breaks in dying.
Punctured hands,
healing, holed holiness,
blood thick,
lacerated skies,
ripped raw veil.
Full weight borne,
wrath pressed down,
love shaken up,
poured out entirely.
Later doubter’s words filled
as fingers flick across the wound,
Silent scar echoes speech
in the cave grave, hill side,
filled and emptied,
the Life who died and lives again.
the tomb replies,
earth's mouth gaping,
louder empty than when full,
fuller now than when it cradled Him,
silent in death,
lauding Him brimming with life.
Each life here poured out,
vanishing for discovery not deceit
caught and kept.
Self not-gone, but found in Him,
Not void in loss,
in Christ filling,
Christ shaping,
Christ alive in us.
the misremembered,
misforgotten, mystery.
The world turns,
emptiness cries for bloody mercy,
breathes His praise, bears His weight.
The gospel fills the hollowed earth
until all things, made and remade,
are finally fully full of Him.