Monday, July 18, 2022

Sarah Law

Sarah Law is a London poet who grew up in Norwich and once worked in the Julian Centre, next door to St Julian's Church. Her natural interest in the medieval anchoress Julian of Norwich was a starting point for further investigations into Christian mystics.

She is the author of several poetry collections, including her sixth: Thérèse (2020, Paraclete) in which she shares her poetic reflections on the life and writings of the Carmelite nun Thérèse of Lisieux (1873―1897). Marjorie Maddox calls the book “A biography-in-verse that brims with beauty, pain, insight, and humility…”

Sarah Law teaches at the Open University, and is editor for the online journal Amethyst Review, which focuses on new writing engaging with the sacred. Her new novel Sketches from a Sunlit Heaven is soon to appear from Wipf & Stock Publishers.

Grace Drifts Down Like Dust

Grace drifts down like dust
over the soul’s rough rocks,

settles in its crevices, scintilla
where even the light is blocked –

grace like fine flour sifting through
a grille to the lumpen heart.

I sit in the back pew (sunshine shears
into the evening church) and see

that motes are always falling –
each particle is gentler than confetti,

hallowing the human, the unready;
its glinting traces bless us unawares.

Grace is manna for an outpost life,
is unconditional and borderless –

there is only the reception of its calling,
all I can do is raise my empty hands.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.