Wonder-woven

S. M. Feir
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Wonder-woven is a podcast that features poetry of beauty and wonder for a weary world. smfeir.substack.com

  1. Come Follow

    30 JAN

    Come Follow

    This poem is based on a real experience I had recently, a second of eternal time that clarified something important for me. Thanks, Mr. cardinal, wherever you are! Come Follow Come follow the call of the free-flying cardinal, The red bird, the bright bird, winging his song over snow-silences, Whose flight does not freeze him nor fell him to earth Though he never flees to find the summer southward, But lives to lift his voice where day dies lonely and dark lingers late. His hope is not hid in some far-off spring, But bells forth in his crystal cry That this day is sweet, this day is all he has, While you stand waiting to welcome winter’s waning as your due, As what you are owed for enduring not even an hour’s subjection to the wind As he must do just to find his dinner. What can he have to sing about, you ask, This imprudent wanderer in winter woods? And yet he goes on, never knowing if spring will come, But singing anyway as though it were already here, No fire but the fierceness of his own little life to warm him, No food but what he is vouchsafed by the slumbering land. So follow him, my heart, and let him lead you! Let his joyful chanting change your ice to rivers of tears, Your cold and stony places to sun-warmed soil, For here is where you make your stand, and now is when you need to be, No longer running to find the always-fading sun But letting dawn live within you by facing your own dark night. Thanks for listening to Wonder-woven, a poetry podcast from Reveries and Ramblings! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smfeir.substack.com

    2 min
  2. Where Lilies Lie

    10/12/2025

    Where Lilies Lie

    At last a new poem! The Good Samaritan is in here somewhere, and as for the lilies, I like lilies. I like the sound of the word and it just seems to work. That’s the image that started the poem coming. Also as ever, the ‘me’ in the poem is me and also humanity in relation to Christ. Where Lilies Lie Ah! Lead me, Lord, where lilies lie Like damask-dawn light dimly echoing The ecstasy of Your eternal and deifying day, Like bridal lace chasing the uncharted borders Between time’s changing chance and true being’s boundless becoming, Breaking the charm of the merely charnel That immortality might at last drown death in real life! I ask this now sincerely, Sir, And yet I know my feet will falter, In fact, are faltering now, Though from my fallen state I call for aid And seek some salve which I alone can never buy, Because the road has robbed my purse of all its coin. Yet You have trod these weary ways before And know the lilies and what lies beyond. Oh, come and find me, bind my wounds, And let me walk, Your blessed and broken hand in mine, To where lives the deepest of delight As my hurts are made holy things For Paradise to ponder and to praise. Thanks for listening to Wonder-woven, a poetry podcast from Reveries and Ramblings! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smfeir.substack.com

    2 min
  3. To Windward

    29/10/2025

    To Windward

    Here is a poem about the actual wind, the winds of history, and yes, the wind of God. I’m talking about forces that, though involving human beings, are beyond our control to stop. We all have these in life. It’s a scary place to be, but it can make room for good things as well. I’m not talking about evil exactly, but it may look like misfortune. I suppose it’s just a restatement of the saying that “it is an ill wind that blows nobody no good.” To Windward The wind is up now, high and singing In the sighing of swaying trees, No mere breeze, but something brave, Something brilliant with destruction, a seeming demon, And yet perhaps kindly, kingly, kindling life Even as it strews its own chaotic strangeness Across the world that it has always shaped. Against its unrelenting roar We rave and rage, Lamenting lost things felled by it in their fullness, Calling it an enemy, a foe, a foul fiend, A thing to be feared For its loud voice and unsparing speed. Yet there is a need for wildness, A time for truth untethered to timid form and custom, A place for positive power, For might unmixed with malice, fit for purpose, Though still unbound, unbridled, not broken Or gentled to the ways of humanity’s brief will. It forces us to face it With neither fear nor favour, And when we meet it, Our mortality is unmade for a time, Uncovered as its weakness wilts and is whirled away By the shining strength which will soon come To stand surely, purely in its place. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smfeir.substack.com

    1 min
  4. Pilgrimage

    22/10/2025

    Pilgrimage

    This poem celebrates the contradictions of my outer life as a homebody and the crazy way my brain works in trying to make sense of the world. Pilgrimage To wander is the province of pilgrims, And here I sit, no staff to carry, No boots to bear me beyond these walls Built of both concrete and self-restraint, Hemming me in by choice as well as by chance. And yet to roam through streets, Or ramble in the bright woods Is what my spirit longs for, That spirit closed in clinging castle ramparts Fitted with stones of uncertainty And mortared with mortal fear. Even here, though, there is a part of me Which packs its bag and vanishes at whiles, Roving with the winds of words Through glades of half-formed fancy, Returning richly laden with treasures never noticed before, The minstrelsy of joy unbidden and abiding, The lays of love unparalleled and without peer Which lift me free and bear me far afield To where all wanderers come at last to rest, Where no walls wait to bind me fast, But for freedom’s bond of faith and blessed fealty. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smfeir.substack.com

    1 min
  5. Leaf Lesson

    15/10/2025

    Leaf Lesson

    I don’t think I need to say much about this poem, except that leaf-time in Autumn has always been one of my favourite times of the year! Enjoy! Leaf Lesson Leaves fall and lie, Swirling and swinging free from their branches, Dead and yet alive in their mortality As they bring to my nostrils their scent of vital decay. How I long to lie down in them, To press their brownness to my face, To feel it rasp there as once I did, As once I did when I was young. Their dying recalls me to life. Is this perhaps a lesson for living well? It takes, after all, falling leaves to bring the spring Spinning its new-green spirit into matter And into my soul, it would seem. Their shining glory must be shed To bless with blossom the land where now they lie Unknown and unremarked, The once-bright leaves now browned and brittle, But giving themselves as sacrifices on the alter Of some future time to come. So too the heart, whipped by winds of worry Must show itself to be itself, No longer green with growth Or crimson with cries of rage Against sorrow and great grief, But shorn of all this, It must lie naked to the chill, Bruised and even broken for a time, Till it is born anew in love And in the new and dew-dappled dawn Of some splendid spring day. Thanks for listening to Wonder-woven, a poetry podcast from Reveries and Ramblings! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smfeir.substack.com

    2 min
  6. Meeting

    08/10/2025

    Meeting

    First, a note on rebranding. The Substack publication of which this podcast is a part, formerly known as Think on these Things, is now called Reveries and Ramblings. Everything else is still the same, however. Now for the reason you’re here. This poem has been kicking around for over a month, and I’m glad I let it stew a little, because it has finally become what I hoped it would. It was inspired by an episode about angels which was recently featured on the podcast called Men among Demons, hosted by two friends of mine, and also by actual experiences I have had which, though I believe they are real, should not be taken out of proportion or given undue weight in life. I believe that we are always having encounters with eternal things, whether we know it at the time or not. Wordsworth called them “spots of time,” and I recognized them in my own life when I read his descriptions in The Prelude. One could also use another Wordsworthian phrase: “Intimations of Immortality” to describe what I’m talking about. Anyway, here’s the poem. Meeting Well met once more, Forever’s Bright Flame, Royal Ray seen certainly with the inward eye, Though when You come, I weaken and I weep, Brought for a brief time to true knowledge of my state, And yet not driven to despair, but rather awed to ecstasy By the peace which You have that I lack. You come with joy attending You, A joy which knows no cause that I can rightly name, Except to call it life unmixed with murder or deceit, Or love without the heavy leaven of hate to weigh it down. In your wake, words come, Things thought but seldom spoken, Spilling like spikenard from my new-made spirit Which is carried for a time in consolation, Upheld by love’s unfading fire, Bound in blessed bonds of true freedom To seek things far-seen and yet near-known. You haunt me with what Heaven is, Though still I cannot see that home And would rather hide from it at times, And yet You show me surely it is there, Or here, or near enough to touch, If we can let it come, little by little, And be born in us, though we are broken, And make of us the vessels of its final victory. Thanks for listening to Wonder-woven, a poetry podcast from Reveries and Ramblings! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smfeir.substack.com

    2 min
  7. Dove

    04/08/2025

    Dove

    This I can only describe as something special. Glory to God! Dove Again I have come, wet-winged and weary, Heart hammering, hunger gnawing me to namelessness, As the sun sinks to ashes in the west, My flight furtive and fleet Over the wide and water-ravaged wastes. The ground grieved, Beloved, where I passed, And did not welcome me as it had before, Though there was plenty of work for the raven, flying this way and that, Fatly feeding on the end of all things, Never seeming satisfied to stillness, His foraging a fruitful feast I could not share. I failed, of course, the first time you freed me, Roving restless and lost as the billows rolled beneath me, Finding nothing firm on which to set my foot, And so I let You lift me from the lonely sky, Stroking my feathers to finished fineness And sending me again to seek some truth Beyond the bitter waters of the world. And now I have it, barely grasped, Bent and broken, bruised, I know, But living still beyond all hope, Though all seems sunk in sorrow’s surge And the raven gluts his gorge on all his eye surveys. Oh, lift from me this olive leaf, Its edges torn and yet still green, And bless its brokenness with blossoming, That I may bear its fullness, swift and sure, To where I may finally fold my now-bright wings, Singing this precious proof of Paradise, My voice your voice’s vessel As the new day begins! Thanks for reading Think on These Things! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smfeir.substack.com

    2 min
  8. Exhortation to Joy

    31/07/2025

    Exhortation to Joy

    Here is a poem I didn’t know I was going to write till I wrote it. Exhortation to Joy Is there room still to sit and sing Of wondrous things which mute the mind that meets them, Sending it soaring from the sensible Into realms of real and unassailable ecstasy? Is there time still to seek in silence The words to set a sleeping soul to stirring, Leaving it thirsting for what lies waiting Beyond the wall of its habitual slumber? Is all that finished now? Are we parted forever from Paradise, Where names meant true knowing And words were bearers of The Living Word Whose singing began the beginning of things? Oh, come and listen for a while! Hear the hum beneath the heavy tread of humanity That lingers latest in the shifting winds As seasons circle one another in their turn, As far and ancient stars now burn And the moon brings the tides to its crystalline call. Oh, come and hear it all! Take time to know as once we knew, As once we stood astonished by the greatness Of creation as it came to us, A gift freely given From Wisdom’s willing hand. Thanks for reading Think on These Things! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smfeir.substack.com

    1 min
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About

Wonder-woven is a podcast that features poetry of beauty and wonder for a weary world. smfeir.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    S. M. Feir
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    167
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Sara Feir
  • Show Website
    Wonder-woven