Kevin Rice

How can it be that you are there
Quiet, hidden and at peace
In the long still silence of the monastery cell
And then, joyful and clamorous
...

From time to time
I open up the box of keepsakes
Abandoning the customary round
To browse the printed memories
...

Did you awaken gently,
Slow as the morning easing out the night
And, lifting the shroud, arise then
In the darkness wrapped in stone?
...

On this bright morn the birdsong is a prayer
Chimed across the Norwich fields and meadows
Chorused in jubilation,
Spreading its beauty
...

He sees the rising sun
And lifts the seed
Setting the sling in place
The breeze weighs perfectly
...

The winding road that leads the traveller home
Goes down through bluebells into evening
Where his place of rest
Waits where the sun now sets
...

We met him on the road,
The two of us
And we three, being weary,
Found us a nearby inn
...

Is anything more beautiful than this
To walk light-hearted in the morning wood
Where air and all the elements
Await expectantly
...

It's you, O, Lord
Who writes the words
Which fill the pages
Of the book
...

Am I secure in silence?
Am I safe
When I am still?
Is there peace in repose?
...

All was peaceful in the house that day
An uneventful morn like any other
Half-heartedly I trifled
At ordinary things,
...

As the leaf falls
So shall I
When autumn asks for me
...

Wordsmiths we are,
Who dig and cut
The rough gems of sentiment and notion
And cut again,
...

Conveyed there by an artist's hand
In peasant garb, at harvest time,
A couple in the twilight stand
As church bells, in the distance, chime
...

On my dark canvas
A bleak story lies
That speaks of foul deceit
Engulfed in shadows,
...

At his command we rowed from shore
Till finally, afar in the Sea of Galilee
Our sail snatched up the wind
And bore us forth
...

The crown of thorns
Pulled roughly from beside
The dry road
Of my way to your will
...

He is the sole creator of my life
He guides the balance of my every breath,
He gives before I ask, and gives again
An everlasting peace, beyond all death
...

Harsh were the times we lived in
Austere were the laws of Moses and of Rome
And in our servitude
We women of Jerusalem
...

Henceforth men shall remember me
Men of every ilk and class
Because of what I failed to see
When signs and wonders came to pass
...