ArtServe member Catherine James read theology at Exeter and Lancaster, and has had a career in teaching. She lives in Derby and is a Methodist local preacher. Catherine says about her poetry: 'My poems often begin as reflections about landscapes and the natural world, or as observations from my travels and places visited. I find that these then often evolve into expressions of my faith.'

Her other poems shared here are Labyrinth, Silence, Calvary and Easter

Water of life 

Water
is not our natural environment.
We cannot breathe it in
like the lively air of morning.
Deep pools are silent,
still as smooth glass,
cold as the snows which fed them.

And yet,
those mirror-waters
catch the restless motion of the clouds.
They create rainbows in reflection.
We hear their music long before we see them.
Streams sing and oceans chorus.
There is movement on the surface,
in the snaking of the river to the sea.

And Christ came as Water,
life – bringing,
life – giving,
cleansing,
healing beside the Sea of Galilee,
calling men to fish
upon the world's waters.

And pausing,
at glaring, driest noon

beside the Samaritan well.