Rublev's Trinity - 'Troitsa' - Moscow

In our devotions Cathy read Rowan William's poem simply entitled 'Rublev'

The title is referring to the famous Andrei Rublev, the greatest master of Russian icon-painting, (14th century). The poem is Rublev's icon of the Holy Trinity, which shows the persons of the Trinity as angels seated together around a table. It is in the Tretyakov gallery in Moscow. Known as Trioitsa in Russian, there is an explanation of the deeper meaning of the icon .

But back to Rowan William's poem

One day, God walked in, pale from the grey steppe,

slit-eyed against the wind, and stopped,

said, Colour me, breathe your blood into my mouth.

I said Here is the blood of all our people,

these are their bruises, blue and purple,

gold, brown, and pale green wash of death.

These (god) are chromatic pains of flesh.

I said, I trust I make you blush,

O I shall stain you with the scars of birth

For ever. I shall root you in the wood,

under the sun shall bake you bread

of beechmast, never let you forth

to the white desert, to the starving sand.

But we shall sit and speak around

one table, share one food, one earth.

Rublev, Rowan Williams, from The Poems of Rowan Williams