Tumbling Into Light: Collected Poems

By Richard Bauckham

Richard Bauckham is one of today’s most outstanding and internationally recognised biblical scholars and theologians. In addition he has, over a number of years, written a corpus of poetry that is admired by, among many others, Rowan Williams, Tom Wright, Jeremy Begbie, David Ford and Malcolm Guite. Tumbling Into Light collects together his poetry,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canterbury Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781786224385

Richard Bauckham

  Richard Bauckham is professor emeritus at the University of St. Andrews and senior scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

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© Richard Bauckham 2022

First published in 2022 by the Canterbury Press Norwich

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The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work

A number of these poems have previously appeared in The Rainbow Poetry News (edited by Hugh Hellicar, privately published, Shoreham, Sussex). They are reprinted with permission.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 786 22 436 1

Typeset by Regent Typesetting

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd

Contents

Foreword by Malcolm Guite

The Months

The Colours of January

The Colour of February

A Moment in March

The Colour of April

The Colour of May

Valerian in June

The Colour of July

August Light

The Colours of September

The Colours of October

Light in November

Trees in December

The News from Siberia

The News from Siberia (I)

The News from Siberia (II)

The News from Siberia (III)

Fellow creatures

Twelve Haiku

The First Daffodil

The Heron

The Tree and I

Tumbling

Angels

Trees at Christmas

Evening Primrose

The Grey Heron

Black Holes

Poems of the Pandemic

Virus

Back to the Future

At Christmas in a Pandemic

Living with Covid

The Church Year: Advent

Haiku for an Advent Calendar

Advent

Dies Irae

The Church Year: Christmas

First Light

Song of the Shepherds

The Christmas Story

The bleary Cows

The Adoration

Dayspring from on High

Approaching Christmas through the Mist

Canticles for the Twelve Days of Christmas

The Church Year: Epiphany

The Journey of the Magi

The Magi tell of their Journey

The Star

The Magi return to their own Country by another Way

The Magi remember

‘He took the child and his mother by night’

The Church Year: Candlemas

Wait and see

The Church Year: Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

The Church Year: Good Friday

Darkness at Noon

Phoenix

The Church Year: Easter

Four Women and a Tomb

Easter Reverie

Early April Flowers

The Church Year: Pentecost

A Pentecost Prayer to the Spirit of Life

Odes to Francis of Assisi

Il Poverello

The Cross at San Damiano

A Song for Brother Sun

A Song for Sister Moon

A Song for Brother Fire

A Song for the Most High

A Song for Sister Death

Tales of the East Neuk

The Isle of May

The Blue Stane of Crail

The Hermit and the King

Saint Fillan

Seasons

Five Haiku

Premature Spring

Spring at last!

Dazzled

Travelling on

Elegy

The Sea, the Sea!

Five Haiku

The Path to the Sea

To Matthew Arnold

To Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Sounds of Seagulls

God

Seven Haiku

God!

Hide and Seek

Reconfiguring

At the End of the Day

Foreword

by Malcolm Guite

There is deft weaving of interconnected themes in this remarkable debut collection of poetry. A scholar’s love and understanding of Scripture is woven together with a poet’s love of nature and a feel for what Eliot called ‘the present moment of the past’. Figures from the biblical narrative speak to us afresh with contemporary voices,