All Saints Day

I know I’m a few days late here, but I saw this poem by Malcolm Guite who has a book called Sounding the Seasons that contains sonnets for the church year. He wrote the sonnet below for All Saints Day, which is the day after Halloween. Guite explains that Halloween means “the eve before All Hallows” or All Saints Day. Anyway, I thought the sonnet used powerful imagery, and thought I would share it.

All Saints

By Malcom Guite

Though Satan breaks our dark glass into shards

Each shard still shines with Christ’s reflected light,

It glances from the eyes, kindles the words

Of all his unknown saints. The dark is bright

With quiet lives and steady lights undimmed,

The witness of the ones we shunned and shamed.

Plain in our sight and far beyond our seeing

He weaves them with us in the web of being

They stand beside us even as we grieve,

The lone and left behind whom no one claimed,

Unnumbered multitudes, he lifts above

The shadow of the gibbet and the grave,

To triumph where all saints are known and named;

The gathered glories of His wounded love.

You can visit his blog at https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/blog/ for more poems. What is especially nice about his blog is that he has recordings of himself reading his poems. I hope you enjoy!