Clarke Sculpture: Perambulating Paths

Date added: 14/04/2026

 

Maquette (2000), bought by Alison and Graham Kings, of The Way of Life sculpture (2001) by Jonathan Clarke, commissioned by The Friends of Ely Cathedral.

 

At the top of our staircase,

          we turn around

          to see the sculpture.

Lit by a window,

          from the right;

Flattered by a mobile,

          from the left;

Faced by a mirror,

          long, behind us;

Hangs the maquette

          of The Way of Life

          for Ely Cathedral.

 

Seen from below,

          four paths meander and

          circumambulate,

          in one way.

Roots in the earth

          rise in slender shapes,

          swimming upwards,

          seeking conception:

Logos spermatikos.

 

Swirling paths with

          four-fold layers,

          move upwards and

          sometimes downwards,

          like snakes and ladders.

 

Eventually,

          at the top of our tails,

We arrive at

          God’s joy in Christ:

          The Logos.

 

Christ attracts and draws us.

As rivers feel their way

          to the sea,

We gravitate to the

          Lord of glory,

Who weighs not our sins

          to our charge,

But directs our desires,

          for our change.

 

Seen from above,

          Christ in splendour,

          like a candle,

Pours the wax of his Spirit

          on his Apostles,

          who proceed in

          perambulating paths.

 

Background of crimson,

          like a robe;

Golden effulgence,

          risen Christ;

Silver aluminium,

         Apostolic mission.

 

 

(c) Graham Kings

     14 April 2026, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

1.    For my other poems in this series on Jonathan Clarke’s sculptures, see here.

2.    For the background to the commission, by The Friends of Ely Cathedral to Jonathan Clarke, to create The Way of Life sculpture, see chapters 11, 12 and 13 in Jeremy Begbie (ed.), Sounding the Depths: Theology Through the Arts (London: SCM Press, 2002. Chapter 12 is an interview with Jonathan Clarke by Vanessa Herrick. My next poem in this series, Clarke’s Sculptures, will expound the final version of the sculpture in Ely Cathedral, which is 30 feet high. 

3.    Logos Spermatikos means the Seminal Word, and is classical a term picked up and used by Justin Martyr (d. 165 AD) to describe the Word of God, the Logos, being seeded in human cultures and thinking before the Incarnation.

4.    Richard Farrant (d. 1580) wrote the following words for an anthem:

Lord, for thy tender mercy's sake, lay not our sins to our charge,
but forgive that is past, and give us grace to amend our sinful lives.
To decline from sin and incline to virtue,
that we may walk in a perfect heart before thee, now and evermore.
Amen.

5.    The original fourth verse of the hymn, ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’, by Isaac Watts (d. 1748), began:

           His dying Crimson, like a Robe,
          Spreads o'er his Body on the Tree.