Glimpsed in Passing

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These poems come from the beauty of the glimpsed moment … a precious jewel held for a short time amid the pain and sorrow of the world, then let go into the bigger picture … The beauty is what we remember, what gives the moment its significance.

It’s the way it’s always been:
to reach the sea, to stand
watching, waiting; to know
that nothing can be unravelled
to its core

but is like reflecting
where wild flowers
gathered in a vase, framed
by a shore cottage window
make of themselves
a sea-wide subject:
the beauty
of things together.

A blackbird sings
and the song echoes
in fragments of memory.

Joy Mead is a member of the Iona Community and the author of The One Loaf, Making Peace in Practice and Poetry, Where are the Altars?, Words and Wonderings and A Way of Knowing, all published by Wild Goose Publications. She has been involved in development education and justice and peace work and occasionally leads creative writing groups.

There is also a free download which updates one of the poems in this book.

Joy Mead is a poet of great sensitivity and subtlety. She is a deeply religious poet, without being a Religious Poet, if you know what I mean. Genuine spirituality is located in the material, in the embodied: that seems to be how our God works. Joy Mead’s spirituality is grounded in the depths of so-called ‘ordinary’ life – the extraordinary life. That’s why she is one of my favourite poets.
Ron Ferguson, author and award-winning journalist

See some sample pages from this book