A poem a week for 2012 - A record of a year in the life of...

...WOMEN BISHOPS
Today whilst I sat at her bedside watching
her paper porcelain fragility stretched taut 
over ninety years, the papers raged over 
women bishops.  Traditional parishoners 
- up in arms, not just men, but women too.  

And I sat and waited patiently for the merest 
flicker of an eyelid, the slightest hint of presence 
of recognition, haunted - by the voice of the vicar
who took her dues each year and still takes them - 
but who never comes to give her communion 



or comfort in her last darkest hours...
And I remember the joy she had giving 
each week, church flowers - arranging
other parishoners by colour and order,
by fragrance, joyous, solemn...

Solemn in the knowledge that she was part
of something bigger than herself, something good
something giving and caring, meaningful.
Safe that when it was her turn, she would not
be alone in a hospital bed - on the edge

of the abyss, not knowing....

And I see the papers and the proposals
and I see no man or woman come to
do their duty, their calling, falling down
And I wait, patiently, with her waiting
for the dust.  And I see
                         -  IT IS NOT GOOD.


** Women oppose female bishops move **
More than 2,000 female members of the Church of England sign a petition opposing the ordination of women bishops.