The Politics of Spring: A New Poem

'Conviviality and merry-making loom, Hearkening age-old botanical promises'

Here are a few pictures of Worcester College Gardens, which inspired a poem I wrote that was recently published by Ekstasis Magazine. These shots were taken a month ago when spring was still being shy and not nearly as rambunctious as it is now.

While the poem's style is meant to embody Gerald Manley Hopkins's bold and vibrant wordiness, its content is a medley of trends from my coursework, conversations with friends, and themes that have been running through my mind.

It attempts to bring Worcester gardens to life as grounds to meditate on the labour of hope, which can sometimes seem quite radical and grates against my own disposition. Simultaneously, these lines reflect on the frenetic excitement of progress in light of our society asking the all-important questions of progress towards what goals and decided by whom? This poem seeks to uphold the spirit of reform and revolution while declaring the necessity of remaining tethered to stories of old, time-tested truths and ancient promises.

I hope it’s nourishing for you in some way, in addition to a few resource recommendations at the end of the post.

The Politics of Spring

Juvenile periwinkles leaflet the roots
Of a densely dimpled trunk
With creamy colossal mushrooms
Piled in protest along its ridges

Pale youngling petals campaign heavenward
As blushed fairy skirt blossoms deliberately prance
And wispy budding branches provoke a glassy pond
Hurriedly braided twigs beckon you brightly

Along a path speckled with mischievously huddled berries
Where resolute phallic fuzzies pierce the sky
Crimped magenta tulips clutch disruptive secrets
While optimism ravages through innocent daffodils

A fading sapphire sigil crests
Ancient uneven walls that surround
Stone gates outlined by stubbornly tangled vines
With pillars of oath-winged lionesses who know this magic well

All of Worcester Gardens quietly humming familiar spirituals
As they bustle with the toils of revolution
Committed to the labour of re-enchanting their plot
And collectively casting the defiant spells of Genesis

Conviviality and merry-making loom
Hearkening age-old botanical promises
Which annually overthrows the curse
Of my lingering cynicism

Resource Recommendations

• Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

  • Spiritual ruminations from a medieval woman, actually the first female author in the English language. Here’s a podcast about her life and influence on C.S. Lewis.

• John Mark Comer on the Trinity Forum

• Anything and everything by poet Scott Cairns. This particular conversation made me weepy, delving into his own pilgrimage and wrestling matches with God while following the guidance of a spiritual father in a monastery in Greece.

• ‘Strangeness is the new real’. A fascinating conversation with one of my favourite thinkers at the moment, Martin Shaw, a storyteller and mythologist who recently found Christianity and is seeking to reclaim the odd and rowdy core of the biblical narrative.

Drinking in the oddities and beauties around me.

Cheers.

Carolyn