Saint Cuthman at Penfold’s Field

From my book A Craftsman at Play in Creation

“Laugh man, weep Heaven,”
Said aloud the saint,
When at a widow’s sorrow,
They laughed without restraint

The sorrow of widows and the poor
They scorned and made their sport,
Those in Penfold’s Field who mowed,
And feared not Heaven’s court

But their laughter quickly faded
When from a sky of blue
Torrents of rain descended
To ruin the crop that grew

The bounty they had expected
All suddenly was gone
While the poor man who had spoken
Drew the widow on

The widow who was his mother
And crippled, no more could walk,
And her son who was a poor man
Pulled her handcart while they talked

Of the glories of their Maker,
And the blessings from their God,
Even while in poverty
A lonely road they trod

For he who was a poor man
Also was a saint
And bore the crosses he’d been given
In joy without complaint

And always filled with love for God,
And the beauties of creation,
Given freely as a gift,
As was his own salvation

Saint Cuthman in the village Steyning
built a church with his own hands
A shepherd who the sheep obeyed
When he gave to them commands

And at the words of this saint
The rains from Heaven fell
The laughter of the haughty
In their spoiled fields to quell

That in West Sussex men might learn
Wherein to place their joy
Not in the riches of the Earth
The moth might still destroy

But in those things eternal
For which Heaven laughs or cries
The things which are unchanging,
Unlike our earthly skies

And still unto this very day
When Penfold’s Field is mown
Rain descends like tears upon
Land cruel laughter once had sown