The Left Hand of God

By David Craig

It's a mistake to insist on an upper middle-class gospel. Orthodox Catholic universities can fall into this trap, as any privileged person can. What matters is spiritual poverty. This is what we are called to, to take the lowest part--always. After all, the only sins we can really know are our own. These poems are an attempt to foreground that problem, that solution. May they give Jesus glory, whatever their success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jan 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666765144

David Craig

David Craig was born in Aberdeen and educated there and in Cambridge. He has taught literature and social history in schools and universities in England, Scotland and Sri Lanka. He has published several books on Natural History and Social History, including The Glens of Silence which was published by Birlinn in 2004. He lives in Cumbria.

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The Left Hand of God

David Craig

The Left Hand of God

Copyright ©

2023

David Craig. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Resource Publications

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paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-6512-0

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-6513-7

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-6514-4

12/05/22

Table of Contents

Title Page

The Left Hand of God

In the Virgin’s Kitchen

Buying Time

Finding Heaven Again

Whitening Leaves

He had Neighbors Named Hank, Kavanagh

Bukowski in Paradise

With Hank, Spring Semester, in a Scheibbs Hospital

Bukowski and the Little Flower

Coming Down

The Hill Country in Judea

The Bottom of the Stairs

Homeless Cousin Karl (and Tolstoy)

The Witness I Can Give

In the Middle of the Street

The Green and the Dry (Bukowski)

A Catholic Bukowski

Goat Cheese

The Fourth Meeting

The Blue Streets of Chefchaouen

Feeling Mythical

Night Life

I have Seen the Dead

Good Friday

Holy Saturday

Easter Rising

The Better Man

Big Friends

C. S. Lewis

Shouting Marigolds

Mercy Gathers Us In

Legos

The Other Francis

Kennywood

Wagons in Chekhov

The Prosaic Days that Never Pass

When You Came into Town (Bukowski, Arizona)

The Cost

Retirement and Subversive Literature

Chaucer’s Earth

Eliot’s Ocean

Cimabue

Confucius and Ricci

In the Huff of Old English Trains

Luke 9: 7–9 (Herod)

The Purpose of Fruit

Lady Bochtaineacht

Chapel Flowers (Bukowski)

Nearing Jerusalem

Seth’s Heart Pictures: Thomas/Davis, West Virginia*

The Longest Day (6/21) in Heaven

The Land that Will Burn

Martha and Mary

Making God who He is

Uvalde

Love

We Don’t Use the Word Aspi Anymore

The Too Familiar County Road

The Pope, for Old People

In a French House

Jan. 3: Never mind if you haven’t kept your word, or if you’ve fallen lower than yesterday.

Jan. 10: When you were little, you did exercises in French. Now that you are grown, give yourself to divine exercises.

Jan. 19: When the moment of death comes for My friends, you believe, don’t you, that I come gently . . . ?

Jan. 22: But what is not My joy when of your own free will you seek ways of multiplying our meetings and deepening our intimacy.

Jan. 26: Surrounded by people. When you smile at them, you give them the communion of thought.

Feb. 12: Lord, I want to be always near You. It’s only my thoughts that run away.

Medieval humor:

heaven’s three surprises.

Firstly, you’ll be surprised at who’s there;

secondly, you’ll be surprised at who’s not there;

and thirdly, you’ll be surprised that you’re there.

The Left Hand of God

In the Virgin’s Kitchen

Mary turns, her hands, deep in a kitchen cloth,

with a smile as big as I can remember. The Dukes,

as she calls them, are out back shaving in the carpentry shop.

Heaven, friends, has no doors: the saints, in and out,

like booths at a church bazaar. This time, on a berm,

metal fatigue costing us our CV axle!

King David helps without the merit of his crown.

His men, their hands greasy on the side of the road.

Do we get points for saintly sweat? (Fortunately,