Virtual Methodist

Cheonggyecheon stream in Seoul, South Korea, daylighted from sewers in 2003. Image: Kaizer Rangwala, Flickr. As I said yesterday's poem was the last of the new pieces I wrote for this year's Wonderful Wander, but we didn't use it on the walk.  Instead Mylie Brennan read this piece which I wrote a few years ago and which, consequently DOES feature in my new collection "Hedge Songs," which will be launched next Friday evening.  As I said on the walk and when I originally posted this poem, daylighting is a contemporary urban environmental movement, encouraging urban planners to uncover culverted rivers and discover the difference that properly managed waterways and green spaces can make to the wellbeing of those living and working in cities. The UK has been relatively late to this global trend, but it might have a special resonance in my home city, which is actually named after a long-buried river. On our walk this year, after we left the banks of the Lagan we large...

The last of the new pieces written for this year's "Wonderful Wander", but this one was unused due to time constraints and a slight change of route.  It was written about the Thomas Thompson Memorial Fountain on a traffic island at the junction of Bedford Street and Ormeau Avenue. It was erected in 1885 by Eliza, daughter of Dr. Thomas Thompson, in memory of her father who was one of Belfast’s pioneers in the fight against cholera, advocating for clean water supplies in the face of sceptics who believed that the disease was caused by an atmospheric "miasma".  It was listed in 1970 but has long ceased to function as an operational fountain. The local Linen Quarter Business Improvement District have, over recent years, cleaned up the fountain and aspire to fully restore it, but even in the decade or so that I've been aware of its history the inscruptions on the red sandstone structure have become more indistinct. Hence the following poem... A memor...

Continuing my deluge of poems in advance for the launch of Hedge Songs next week , here is another piece written for last week's "Wonderful Wander." It was great that my mate and fellow poet  Jim Deeds  was able to be back wandering with us this year, though we retained the services of Dr. Mylie Brennan to keep our facts straight and the average age down! As the three of us talked over the route in advance it was again interesting to note the different and similar perspectives of our city between Jim and me, him being brought up in the west as a Catholic and me an east Belfast Prod. Both our households got our "lemonade" from the "Maine Man" (see yesterday's poem), but as we talked about the Ormeau Road where we would come out of the Gasworks, he reminded me that in various parts of the city, including at this junction, in the "bad old days" the side of the road you walked on led to a presumption of whether you were a catholic of a protes...

As I continue preparations for the launch of my new collection of poetry, here is another piece that won't be in it, but perhaps might find its way into a future one. It's somewhat more light-hearted than the past few that I have posted and was written specifically for the annual Wonderful Wander that forms part of the 4 Corners Festival. This  year, following this year's theme of "Journey" we took our crowd of "Wanderers" from the old Central Station (now renamed Lanyon Place) to the huge new Belfast Grand Central Station, via the Lagan towpath and Gasworks. As we turned off the towpath into the Gasworks we paused at the sculpture known as "The Bolt". It is actually a huge representation of an early screwtop, designed to celebrate the huge mineral water industry that used to exist in Belfast, linked to the massive Belfast whiskey industry – at one time producing more whiskey than anywhere else in the world, until American Prohibition killed it...

Following on from my comments yesterday I wrote the poem below  Many of you know my long fascination with Simon Peter (perhaps second only to Jonah), and many years ago I wote a short series of reflections on him supposedly through the eyes of Andrew. But in recent years I have developed a sympathy for Simon's frequently overlooked brother. Then, on my recent visit to Rome our group had a fascinating time with Fr. Martin Browne OSB from the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity who introduced us to this icon, usually referred to as "The Holy Apostle Brothers." It was given to Pope Paul VI by Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople in 1964 as a symbol of the fraternal relationship between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, with Andrew holding a special place in the eastern church as he was supposedly martyred in Greece, as Simon Peter was in Rome. In John's Gospel Jesus told his followers that they would be identified by their love for one another. In an...

I started to write this a few weeks ago, the evening after I had the amazing privilege to be "in the room" with Pope Leo XIV. This was the first of 2 such happenings in that week, something that many Catholics would love to experience just once in a lifetime, and there I was, the son of an Orangeman. It wasn't a private audience. I've never been in a larger crowd in a venue that hasn't involved a ball game or a rock band (the Brazilian youth string ensemble playing "The girl from Ipanema" as a warm up act didn't count). But our small group were lined up on the steps at the front of the auditorium to be introduced to him and get our "souvenir photo."  But before he came to meet us there were two other categories of people. Those placed in a queue to meet him personally in groups no bigger than 4-5. I have no idea of the criteria for being in this first group, although some were clearly dignatories of one kind or another. The next...