I was unsuccessful in the poem which I submitted to the Telegraph poetry competition. The competition was to write a poem about a work of art. I wrote a poem about the resurrection window at Ampleforth Abbey.

The Resurrection Window, Ampleforth Abbey.

We’re in it

But nobody knows what it is:

Life.

 

Is it complexity

Is it generosity

Or chemical reactions

Of countless ferocity?

 

Is it a service

Of golden standard

Transparently handed

From Jesus,

Like the rays in the resurrection window?

 

Is he the source of life

The end of strife

The source of transparency

From another galaxy?

 

Is he for harmony,

Creativity

And connectivity,

Or for exodus

Taking us home?

 

In his world,

Will we be like fibreoptic filaments,

Participants

Not militants,

Networking,

Transmitting the light,

Transmitting his life

Of transparent gold?

 

I hope so.

 

Peter Coates 21/12/23

The Resurrection Window, Ampleforth Abbey.

I’d like to be a doctor

In an office made of glass,

It’s totally transparent

And not the usual farce.

 

I’d have a gold prescription pad,

Gold standard’s my command,

I’d see all those who wanted help,

Perfection they’d demand.

 

They wouldn’t need examination

History, tests, exsanguination,

Harmony with all creation,

Solves their needed adaptation.

 

I’d prescribe them resurrection

On my golden pad,

Wholesome body, wholesome mind,

An end to going mad.

 

In a changed reality,

Leaving all insanity,

Banishing all cruelty,

For wholesomeness and harmony.

 

And I’d prescribe them resurrection

For their dead most dear,

The ones they thought they’d never meet,

But only shed a tear.

 

They’d say you can’t deliver this

I’m suing for a ban,

I’d say you’re absolutely right

But I know a man who can.

 

It’s Jesus, the origin of life.

 

No God, you say.

Just death’s disaster.

But if he gave us bread and wine

Standing on the Karman Line

Would you believe,

Our master?

 

No God, you say,

Just death’s disaster.

Look down at curving white and blue

With hosts of travellers, me and you.

Would you believe,

Our master?

 

No God, you say.

Just death’s disaster.

But if the dead should join the host

Fleeing sin from coast to coast

Would you believe

Our master?

 

People whose generosity

Generates quality

And generates equality

Are like fibreoptic filaments

Transmitting the light.

 

We independent filaments

We join

We network

We transmit

The misty mystery

The countless complexity

The evidenced history

Of God’s generosity.

 

No God, you say.

Just death’s disaster.

But if we joined our minds to pray

One mind we’d be upon that day

Would you believe,

Our master?

 

No God, you say.

Just death’s disaster.

But would you follow light years far,

To new homes near that distant star,

And never leave

Our master?

 

Peter Coates 21/12/23.