Poetry of a year

Easter Sunday

by Katy Ullyatt

Click here to watch a video of this poem

She knows…
God knows…
 
She knew you before you were born
As you moved and churned whilst growing
As you jostled for the way into life
 
She knew you as you emerged into light
As your lungs filled with your first ever breath
As your eyes opened and stared into the face of love.
 
She knew you as you were carried
As you felt the warmth of the closest embrace
As you were born to trust the arms that held you
 
She knew you as you were introduced to yourself
As you were hungry and called out in the dark
As you recognised the name that you were given
 
She knew you as you learnt to stumble and stand
As you were given the strength to try again
As you reached for a hand and realised its grasp
 
She knew you when you thought you were alone
As your mistakes were not held as a tally
As you were forgiven when you didn’t see what you had
 
She knew you when you ached from top to toe
As you groaned and your brow was cooled
As you wept and your tears were dried
 
She knew you as your failings entangled your mind
As you lost the horizon and were turned to see
As your wounds and your bruises were kissed.
 
She knew you whilst kneeling with your sadness
As you skipped in delight every moment a treasure
As your frayed heart sobbed it was mended by belonging
 
She knew you as you travelled far away
As you were saddled with who people say you were
As you came home you were welcomed with a feast.
 
She knew you in a way that was fuller than the world
As your ramblings were listened to with a joy
As you were cherished as a precious jewel
 
She knew you and offers her breath as a sacrifice of self
As your life is of greater value than her own
As you are loved in grace with a motherly holiness.
 
She knows you.
God knows you

 

From silent to shout

by Katy Ullyatt

Silence filled the stillness of the tormented night
As the earths womb held tight its grip
He laid swaddled in burial bands
And anointed with God's fragrance of death

Hushed is the dawn and slowly awakened
With thick darkness parted into two
As shards of gold shadows cut through the air
The seal of the stone undone

Whispered feet come to tend to grief and grave
A duty wrapped with a ribbon of love
Mary’s clear surety of the way of life
Meets fuelled explosive confusion

Loud questions of where, when and who would do
With thoughts of removed, stolen, taken
Every breath is grasping for lungs of clarity
Racing to share an absent reality

Blurting questions form as eager as the pace
Sorrows drop from eyes as precious jewels
Staring into the opening of a once used tomb
Seeing only ourselves gazing back.

Spoken is a word to enlighten the world.
Tender is the gardener who knowingly speaks
With concerns for the lost and the spirited poor
A name is said to reveal what’s always there

Proclaim the risen splendour of the Sovereign Lord
With broken-hearted eyes blinking impatiently to see
Her mourning is bound up in audacious comfort
That fills with the joy of a clapping tree

Shouts of Hallelujah ripple through town and time
Of power that lifts from the clutches of death
The master builder commanding the stones and skies
The impossible energy that overcomes lies

The gentle risen authority who speaks of your tears
Has given his suffering as our sin laid him down
He is alive in the power of His poured blood.
Hallelujah He is risen indeed
 

When your eyes adjust to the light

by Katy Ullyatt
Click here to watch the video of this poem.

Your world is a room full of an artificial glow
Your window bounces your face right back
Turn off your lamp to see the dawn
Let your eyes adjust to the light
 
The sun lifts from its timely rest
Your glass lies about who you are
Stretched hues of a colourful horizon beyond
Let your eyes adjust to the light
 
When our limited glow is allowed to fade
A confident beauty reveals your truth
For it was written and it shall be so
Let your eyes adjust to the light
 
God's power pushes away your stones
And brings sight to your blinded heart
The image you see is not your own
Let your eyes adjust to the light
 
Life is risen from out the depths
Love shines the clearest joy
Your guilty sins are painted white
Let your eyes adjust to the light
 
In your room of your artificial glow
Turn off your lamp to see
The image of the invisible God
Looks through the pane to thee.
 

VE Day - a day of hope

by Katy Ullyatt

It was a day of celebration,
It was a day of joy,
A day when the guns fell silent,
And the man became a boy.

It was a day when the crying ceased,
It was a day to reunite,
A day for rebuilding to start,
And a day to see the light at night.
 
Today is a day to remember the defeated,
Today we must pray for our enemies,
A day to see our part in the war,
A day to seek forgiveness as Jesus sees.
 
Look today at a world in rage,
Look today at the greed that doesn't cease,
A day to shout for real justice,
A day to whisper peace peace peace..
 
We wait for a day when justice will come
We are filled with hope as we wait
For a day when there will be no more pain
And a day of love between every state.
 
Yesterday was a day the Lord had made,
Today is a His day too,
Be thankful and praise for His healing grace,
For tomorrow there is much to do.
 
Be thankful there is a hope In Christ Jesus.
 

Dedication

by Katy Ullyatt

We want you to make messy and muddy pies
And always go out chasing after pretty butterflies
 
We want you to build dams out across the streams
And stopping in the warm to eat sunny day ice creams
 
We want you to feel loved by us, every single day
And secure in that knowledge to concentrate on play.
 
We want you to feel your family’s close embrace
And learn about the ones who’ve been taken into grace.
 
We want you to hear of how much they’d have cared
And how we’ll miss the moments we had hoped they’d have shared.
 
We want you to be happy and laugh and joke and sing
And become the person that has love for everything.
 
We want you to explore the world created by God's hand
And count the stars he has made and every grain of sand.
 
We want you to always know that Jesus is your friend
And in your life, that you will know His love will never end.
 
We want you to be able to climb to the top of the tree
And really want you to live a life that is fully free
 
We want you to make messy and muddy pies
And always go out chasing after pretty butterflies
 

The Philippines - The Dumpsite is Wired

 
Twisted tangled wires spiral around heads,
Rushing chaotically to deliver and charge,
Arriving in ram shackled sheds with windswept plastic,
Where the mist of God over humanity is transparent. 
 
Unadopted nobodies reside in poverty,
Dancing and laughing along the mudless, stenchriden paths, 
Angels smile and beam with oozing potential for a life,
Unclaimed people, claimed by the Lord for his glory. 
 
Layers of rotting waste towering tall,
with these human lives treated as a nuisance,
The Lord swirling wind fully into every forgotten corner,
Those who don't exist sprinkled with the baptismal water of life. 
 
Fatherless seek a father where life seems pointless,
But in this chaos there is much heavenly order,
Love and community weave vibrantly in full colour,
Tears of grief, sown in pain will turn to joy. 
 
Revealed in beauty, Gods vastness is visible,
Like an ocean of chaotic energy and yet steadfast and still,
As if each space is filled with liquid love as we float like receptive sponges,
Eager to be soaked in his holy blessings. 
 
Make the dirty cleansed and the week, strong,
The unborn, born and created fully human,
Gods hands punching into the centre of happy land and grappling with brokenness,
Gods love rescues lives one by one to stand as one together. 
 
The lords love is gracious and has unending magnitude,
His Love extends through all of time and pulses like a beating heart,
A chaotic discarded place of meticulous mess and rubbish,
Damaged, confused and tangled wire yet surging with miracles,
Flowing with the audacious love and power of God. 

Christmas

In the Beginning and In the Beginning again
Based on Proberbs 8.

I am in the beginning
Before I become
In the beginning
 
I am the worlds inception.
Before I become
The cosmic conception
 
I am the source and the essence.
Before I become
A gentle powerful incarnate presence
 
I am earlier than the morning dawn.
Before I become
The new born infant’s breath drawn
 
I am the explosive creative formation.
Before I become
God’s perfect revelation
 
I am the energy that bursts out of night.
Before I become
The worlds manger light
 
I am the good of the very first day
Before I become
Unbroken Love laid in the hay

I am time before it ticked its hands.
Before I become
A captive of an occupied land

I am the word of truth that is spoken
Before I become
Cries of a child and a silence broken
 
I am the force of loves existence.
Before I become
A faithful voice of temple resistance.
 
I am wisdoms most beautiful dance
Before I become
Held in a mothers tender glance
 
I am the breath that forms from the earth
Before I become
The crosses gasp of resurrection birth
 
I am the way the beginning is done
Before I become
A new creation in the son.
 
I am constantly and eternally divine
Before I become
Yours and you become mine.