Last Rembrandt Post for Now

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Ashmolean, Good Samaritan, oman at the Well, Oxford, Rembrandt, self-portrait

From ‘The Young Rembrandt’ exhibition @ The Ashmolean, Oxford.

Young Rembrandt- even more wonders!

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Ashmolean, Oxford, portraits, Potiphar's wife, Rembrandt

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

The Prodigal Son

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Burford Church Hall, Charlie Macke, Cotswolds, Prodigal Son, reconciliation

Painting in Burford Church Hall.

And he came to himself…  The father could only wait and pray until that moment.

Artist- Charlie Mackesy

Expulsion from Eden

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Adam and Eve, encaustic floor tiles, Expulsion from Eden, Gloucester Cathedrsl

Gloucester Cathedral

by Candia

Lampedusa Cross

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Amazighs, Barbary pirates, Coniglio, Coromandel, Eritreans, flotsam and jetsam, Lampedusa, Mary Magdalen, Mediterranean, migrants, Montelbano, Patmos, Phoenicians, Saracens, Somali, St Paul

Was watching an Inspector Montelbano programme – for linguistic

purposes, you understand.

It certainly wasn’t for subtlety, but the scenery is good!

Anyway, it was about migrants and I suddenly remembered my poem on

Lampedusa and thought I might as well publish it, rather than leaving it

on standby.

A local artisan made a cross from the bits of driftwood from the wrecks

of migrant boats and set it in a chapel.

So, here is my poem.

 

Lampedusa Cross,

nailed from shipwrecked lives, splinters:

Tuccio fecit,

amid Artemisia,

with Wormwood, like the toxic

star which fell to Earth,

corrupting all our waters.

Mugwort – protector

of travellers, from spirits,

malign and bitter –

why did you not help them live?

 

Francesco, you honoured them:

the Eritreans;

the Somali refugees.

You worked with the wood,

which tanged of salt suffering;

carved their scuppered crafts and

crafted signs of hope;

placed one above an altar;

trembled at its touch,

as if handling a relic

(as though St Paul had

blessed all those who washed to shore,

clinging to freed planks

not dissimilar to these.)

 

Castaways swam to

Coniglio’s lights, as if

striving to strand in Heaven,

kerosene-covered,

or later, wrapped in gold foil,

like saints receiving new robes

for abandoned rags,

once through the deadly portal.

 

Phoenicians, Romans,

Amazighs, Greeks, all landed here,

where Saracens sacked;

Barbary pirates plundered,

raking out slave loads.

 

The Marabouts were washed up

hereabouts, seeking

alms to fund their pilgrimage.

The Mare Nostrum

buoyed up Mary Magdalen;

John sailed to Patmos;

Thomas to the coast

of Coromandel, it’s said.

 

Sea-sick disciples

berated the Son of God

in a storm on Galilee.

He was still on board,

though He seemed to be asleep.

But, when He said, Come!

one found he walked on water.

 

In Lampedusa,

the sacred table, chalice,

fashioned from driftwood,

have been assembled from beached

flotsam and jetsam –

sacrosanct, reserved fragments,

though mere detritus,

from the high tide’s waterline.

Their significance

will grow, till the world is healed

by a Carpenter

who shows compassion for crowds;

loves the discarded

and creates His own kingdom.

His invitation

is to those no one welcomes.

 

 

 

 

 

Asthall, nr Swinbrook, Oxfordshire

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Asthall, Cotswolds, Eton College, Job, King David, Mitfords, murals, Naomi, Oxfordshire, Queen Esther, St Nicholas' church

I think Eton College funded its 19th century restoration.

Haunt of the Mitford Family.  A Cotswold cornucopia.

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

St James the Great, South Leigh

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Doom, John Wesley, Mary, Oxfordshire, rosary, South Leigh, St James the Great church, wall paintings

Oxfordshire.  Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart.

These were whitewashed and when John Wesley preached here in

his early days, he would not have been able to see them.

Poem to follow- next post.

Sacred Texts from The Weston Library

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Oxford exhibition, sacred texts, Weston Library

a recent exhibition at The Weston Library, Oxford.

St John the Baptist, Cirencester

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Anne Boleyn, Benjamin, Cirencester, communion chalice, Dissolution of Abbeys, fan vaulting, farthingale, Gethsemane, Henry VIII, Herod, Salome, St John the Baptist church, wool church, Woolsack

(Anne Boleyn’s Communion chalice, donated by Elizabeth I’s physician,

is displayed in a niche in the above.)

 

 

Had her head been brought in on a platter,

she might have seen a vaulted porch, with veins

like gills, or fine tracery of brocade;

or diagrams of a nervous system;

or skeletal frames of hooped farthingales.

That narrow windpipe staircase on the right,

constricted as her white, extended throat,

might have reminded her of a Tower

and the futility of counting steps.

 

This holy place was built on virgin wool.

It was a fold for sheep, who stood before

shearers and then were led to swift slaughter.

Here is a wine glass pulpit, slim as waists,

pre-gravid: a stem for those who could grasp.

 

A Lamb prayed such a cup would pass from Him,

but had to drink it to the bitter dregs

and she had her Gethsemane as well.

Benjamin, caught with a stolen vessel,

was offered clemency – but she had none.

Her gilt chalice, though charged with sacred blood,

conferred no immunity,  nor did it

prevent Dissolution of the Abbey.

 

Criticism of a current favourite

did John the Baptist no favours either.

But the dancer in Herod’s court was sly –

perhaps more so than this sloe-eyed woman,

who ultimately was beheaded too.

 

May, the traditional time for losing

one’s heart to one’s love, was a nuptial month,

but also a month of execution.

 

Cherry tree confetti in the graveyard,

proleptic of this afternoon’s wedding,

has already been bruised and downtrodden.

 

You may sit on a Woolsack, or a throne,

and gain the whole world, or lose your own head.

 

(The engraved acanthus decoration

evokes immortality; lineage.

Though its thorny leaves speak of sin and pain,

it was an apt gift to a physician,

from the grateful daughter of Anne Boleyn.)

 

 

 

Bowood Treasures

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Bowood, etched glass, Fishermen, Jesus, King George, Queen Charlotte, Wiltshire

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart