Reading

 

good morning

to the wrench of tanks as your eyes open

on czechoslovakia after all seemed changed

and between text messages

doom unsonorously scrapes cobblestones

untroubled our ‘hero’ the window cleaner

climbs through the French doors

makes love in the old-fashioned way

to the lady commissar by invitation

forgetful for a time of juliette binoche

or that he is a brain surgeon

rococo top floor unalarmed

 

good afternoon

again to the brownings and equally rossettis

the italian thread going both ways

catholicism present but not spoken of

faith at the foreground

and those brontës intense as

that whole question of home as a parsonage

casa guidi the rossettis’ bolthole

place a home where the voice is grounded

christina poems that speak for themselves

to all the rossettis and brownings of this world

good evening

words in fave paperbacks of creased cover

amidst routine surroundings

you cannot live without

explosions and floods

finnish bohemians and hattifatteners

reliving exodus

cartooning happy families

their memoriser on an island in the stream

 

good night

to the drunkest welshman in christendom

young and easy under the apple boughs

turning a page turning the light off

a roof over your head

ikea pillowcases

reading the europeans even in your sleep

as one door leads to a smaller door

down corridors of increasing guilt

reactivated desire

that might be all in your mind

or the castle in a city refusing to be named  

in a time that predates books

and has never heard of such things

as parsonages or czechoslovakia

Reading

 Reflections for the Third Sunday of Epiphany, the 26^th of January 2025, in the pew notes at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey.

 

Being read to is one of life’s minor pleasures. While one of the few places nowadays where it is required, and generally the norm, is church. The other public place where we regularly read aloud and are to read to is school. The synagogue was both these things, a place of sabbath worship and teaching, which is where we logically and audibly find Jesus. 

Today we hear him taking his turn reading to the local Nazarenes (Luke 4: 14-21). This event itself is an example to us of why we read Scripture aloud to one another in church, to hear, ponder, and interpret. He is the one giving permission, indeed requiring this be done, which is why in any church we expect the Gospel (at the very least) to be read, or even sung, at worship. The precedent is written into the story, an encouraging model. 

The verses from Isaiah are an epiphany. They enact one expectation of poetry, that it state sufficiently in a brief space the best words to declare a revelation. No syllable is wasted. Listeners may have different reactions, but they understand what’s being said. 

Like all witnesses to this moment, through time, we are told the Holy Spirit is upon him, that he is anointed and brings good news to the poor. God has sent him to proclaim release of those captive, recovery of sight to the blind, freeing of the oppressed, and proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favour. It is a jubilee moment with a difference. They are words we hear in church. 

This text within a text, this poem within the narrative, is read to us as if for the first time. The poem is an icon, an icon of the one who is reading the words to us. Having scrolled down, he rolls it up, then sits down again, rather as we might turn off our screen when we’ve had enough, job done. What next then?      

As we know from hearing the Gospel each week, the showing forth of Jesus is not simply beautiful words but the true living out of the actual prophetic words we have just heard in the icon. Very soon he will say and do other things in the synagogue that will cause the temporary wonder of his hearers to turn to anger, such that they will be ready to throw him over a cliff. It gets nasty, as the living truth of his words take hold in their minds. Just as, today, we are confronted with the actual expectations that Jesus’ presence places on us, in our own particular and peculiar places and ways. 

Reading

Digressions and daring diacritics have become my [reading] habits, our hero thought, chasing clickbait down a whirlpool. Laughs on everyone, tiktok hobbyhorses, unconventional sermons. Outside his screen, domestic life intervened. Chance occasions, minor upsets, relative realtime. On screen, noses projected, sex elected, insults corrected. Siege warfare toggled with youtubers, originality with plagiarism as our hero rolled the scroll. He noted yesterday was Laurence Sterne’s birthday. “Not things, but opinions about things, trouble man.” Our hero clicked Like, cracked Yorick-like puns, scratching his ostensible skull. Plethora, that means a lot. Some days were plotless, as he merged into the marbled endpapers.

 

Reading (March)

[Advertisement] Amidst the forward push of commuters on Platform One, fishing for mykis, tapping on screens, walks slowly a young woman of average height reading as she walks page 310 of ‘The Idiot’ by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Tickets, traffic, news, and March are all but incidentals to what happens next with the epileptic prince. Her compendious bag bumps against her dress. Does she find the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation effective? Are we doomed? Can we be redeemed? What’s foolish and wise? What does experience teach us? Where are we going? She is left to her thoughts as my train ordinarily departs.