This set of poems started life as No. 6 - The Cross, and was the one I consider to be my first "real" poem, although "Rose Found on a Spring Morning" predates it (if my memory is correct 50 years later.) My original typed copy says December 1974. I took it down to show my mentor, Fr. Paul, and he was reasonably impressed, as were the few other priests who I had lunch with on the day.

Having been quite proud of it, I tackled parts 1-5 a year or so later (1975, but undated, and thought I was finished with the whole sequence, ending at the crucifixion. My brain would not let it go until I wrote part 7, "The Sun", about the resurrection, which sort of makes sense, but I was always less happy with it than I was with the others.

October 2022 and my friend and "second daughter" Sammy Ying had come over to help me put a vocal track to one of my other poems, "Midwinter". She and I had discussed poetry (and plays and other literature) and she understood that somethings need to be spoken, not just read, so I'd asked for her help. I showed her a sampling of my poems, and later sent a couple of examples. In the process of explaining "The Stones Themselves" to her, I realised the problem with “The Sun”: I did not have enough to write. The other 6 poems are 14 sets of paired lines, each with a particular but similar rhythm. "The Sun" had only 8 sets (and the last has only 1 word: Master. At the time, I remember deciding to just let it go. The rhythm was off as well, but I wasn't sure how to fix it, or if I wished to put the effort into trying.

In 2018, I had written the text of "An Easter Carol", set to the tune of Gabriel's Message, an old Basque tune. You play the original at Advent and Christmas and it tells the story of Mary receiving the angel's message and giving birth to Jesus. My hymn is played at Easter, and tells the story of Mary Magdalene coming to find the open, empty tomb on Easter morning, and being the first to see the risen Christ. It's a text I'm proud of, and singing both hymns joins the two feasts by showing the importance of both Marys in the life of Jesus.

So as I'm having a messages chat with Sammy about "The Sun", I realised that the story of Mary Magdalene will slot in fairly seamlessly and give me the missing 6 sets of lines.

If you are interested in how I edited all the poems, start with “The Cross.” It had the original rhyme and rhythm scheme and needed little fixing -  a few words substitutions to improve it. All the others needed work to get them to the same scheme.