Kenneth Steven of Dunkeld is a poet whose work is often underpinned by a sense of spiritual reflection. Here, on Good Friday, are samples from Island, his Collected Poems, published by Saint Andrew Press in 2009.

                      IONA

Is this place really nearer to God?

Is the wall thin between our whispers

And his listening? I only know

The world grows less and less -

Here what matters is conquering the wind,

Coming home dryshod, getting the fire lit.

I am not sure whether there is no time here

Or more time, whether the light is stronger

Or just easier to see. That is why

I keep returning, thirsty, to this place

That is older than my understanding,

Younger than my broken spirit.

                 REMEMBER

There will be only a few days like this –

The low sun flinting the house

Through the green sea of the trees as you stand

Struck, blessed, bathed in the same light

That rose life once from the young earth, that applied

The first child’s cheek’s.

There will be only a few days like this

To stop doing and stand, blinking,

As the leverets tumble in the bright field

And a cuckoo’s moss voice calls from a far wood.

Wait until the sun has gone in broken orange

Down beneath the hills, and the blue sky

Hurts with the sudden shudder of the dusk.

Give thanks and turn and go back home –

For there will be only a few days like this.

.

                PRAYER

If you do not believe in God

Go on a blue spring day across these fields:

Listen to the orchids, race the sea, scent the wind.

Come back and tell me it was all an accident

A collision of blind chance

In the empty hugeness of space.