When you’ve been a preacher
You learn the power of words
You feel their force
Their rhyme their rhythm
Their swaying power
To bless to curse
And when you’ve been a teacher
Standing before a class
Addressing them for hours
In lectures to the mass
You know how to enthral them
How to hold their gaze
That daily repetition
Never ceases to amaze
And so re-reading McKenzie
I hear him in the hall
The structure of his sentences
Like pictures on the wall
He knows these words will linger
He knows the power they bring
The lectures of his lifetime
One more time will sing
Brian Fahy
26 August 2022
+ I have just ordered my own copy of The Power and the Wisdom, first published in 1965 and reprinted in 2009. From reading the words on the page it is clear that the author was a public speaker. It is as if you are once again in the lecture hall and the professor is at the podium. I shall enjoy this book again and leave it as a gift to my son and grandsons.
John L McKenzie (1910 – 1991) priest, Scripture scholar, teacher, author.
Erris Poetry 