“Going up the Candle” at Pusey House, Oxford

“Going up the Candle” at

Pusey House, Oxford

Wesley P. Owens

The view buds brighter when we rise
Toward the flame, backs straight,
Carrying our silver trinkets like caravan at play,
Magi colluding in a cloud of smells,
Miming God’s own language of love
On fleshy fingers — folded hands of holy.
Kneel before Him there, the morning Star,
And see Him light upon the hand, handled Host
Near white caress of candle, skin-shod.

Pray the presence in, with brass of bell
And bellows of breath: shudder
By the flickering flares that shine
In orbit over dread dark-matter maze
Of rough, gray stone, as plain as silence,
Hallowed high above the head, solemnly.

Prepare for me a byway through this musty earth;
Then let me stand, as Moses stood, before the rock
And sip its laver lovingly in the desert.
Soiled and weeping, we wade through waters at the
Raised rood: waist-deep, wide-eyed,
With ghostly, grim, and gothic gaze,
Toward Golgotha’s perch along the petrous screen,
Hearts damp and shriven bloody, iron-red as rust.

God of all, whom we see through glass darkly,
Let me be your choice glass glistening.
Cull my dust into your mirror. Lighten my face.
Moisten the kiln-fire of my speech into a steam
That rises thick as incense in the steely air.

God of all, gild me, and let me lie ecclesiastic
In the crossing of your staff and rod.
Allure me, and I will swim and brood
Upon the broad ocean, eye in the dark cloud
When thrice call in calm celestial voices:
Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!
Stillness, silence stirred to warm sound
While the breath seeps, and the flesh feels
Sure alive in liquid mercy
Flowing from your sacrificial side.

---

Wesley P. Owens
Priest & Poet

Wesley is an Anglican priest and Benedictine-at-heart.  He currently serves at St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral in Tallahassee while completing research at the University of Oxford on monastic renewal in relation to contemporary missiology.

Photography by Adrian Olichon