Artisans
This poem was broadcast on 'Something Understood' (BBC Radio 4) on 21st February 2010, available for the following week on Listen Again
‘Bienheureux les artisans de paix…’
Blessed the singers of peace,
lamenting the unfinished business, sorrow
and dream: whose song changes nothing
but opens everything to change.
Blessed the potters of peace,
hands in the clay, shaping, smoothing,
reaching for hidden form, braving
the furnace for beauty.
Blessed the embroiderers of
peace:
at their needle’s touch, an ordinary surface
shines in a sacrament of colour, angles
softened into treasures of texture.
Blessed the sculptors of peace
who look at the intractable
slab, and see marvels within it
and reach for the chisel.
Blessed the poets of peace
who bear all voices into their emptiness,
settling stresses into speech
which at the last is music.