The Day of Saints - Day 7, Morwenna

It is said that Morwenna arrived in Cornwall from Wales via schooling in Ireland. When she landed, she set about building a church on top of the cliffs with rocks from below which she carried on the top of her head. Legend has it that at some point when she rested on the way up a spring of water gushed out of the hillside, and Morwenna's Well was established.

This first saint poem springs from again realising that we face setbacks and problems even when we have the best of opportunities and sense of God's presence. How we deal with these things is up to us, but we can learn, albeit sometimes very slowly, by reflection and repetition of virtuous actions and life choices, and by coming back to the path.

FOR MORWENNA

Lectio Lapides (reading stones)

From the foam below, to the top of her head,

On the top of her head to the foot of the hill,

From the foot of the hill to the head of the field,

Then down from the head to the loam below.

(repeat)

Sometimes set like Sisyphus, but getting there, yes, getting there,

Falling, wet, yet with purpose, and getting there, please, getting there,

And getting there indeed she is, and somehow blessed to carry,

A weight of work for those who do not read what makes her tarry.

Following a downward path, with gravity, oh, gravity,

It fights her, but she'll rise and laugh, with charity, yes, charity

For charity is what she reads along the steepened incline,

And in each excavated stone she heaves from near the shoreline.

Slowly rising, slower still, now questioning, the questioning,

A weight of doubt that taunts her will, 'It's gesturing, just gesturing',

And falling down, the cursed rock goes rolling to the wave break,

It splashes out fell mockery, 'Oh, give this up, for God's sake'.

From the foam below, to the top of her head,

On the top of her head to the foot of the hill,

From the foot of the hill to the head of the field,

Then down from the head to the loam below.

(repeat)

-----

'Go, Morwenna, to the stone, there read again, look, read again

Your prayer to climb and build my home; you need again to read again,

Examine Peter building church, go search among the urchins,

And if you slip, or faithless lurch, I'll raise you and your burden.'

'"We shall not live by bread alone", Morwenna says, 'It's as I've read',

'I'll offer up this leaden stone, until I'm dead, as if it's bread!',

She bends to reach the hallowed ground, whereon it took its fall,

And lifts upwards the lithic round, to meet the Cornish wall.

Foot through footstep, time on time, a climbing prayer, a climbing prayer

Ascending, till the paths run smooth with wear and tear, (still...getting there),

A lesson in each pause and pace she learns from humble reading,

The whetted sand and stony ground, which yield with interceding.

From the foam below, to the top of her head,

On the top of her head to the foot of the hill,

From the foot of the hill to the head of the field,

Then down from the head to the loam below.

(repeat)

-----

Late in life, upon that path, a holy trace of wending grace,

She rests and gives a sweetened laugh, a wrinkled face in sacred space,

When sudden, gushing from loam, a fresh new spring arises,

Which downward pouring on the combe, her proffered stone baptises.

For Morwenna