Tag: Poetry

Sleeping

I hear her sleep, breath telling stories I cannot know. The stillness only broken by a rare twitch or turn. The day has drifted into the night. Taken up by the warmth as it rises from beneath the blanket. Filling the space above her head with its concerns. Be free yesterday, she must rest and make space for tomorrow, your only home now is the movies that play in the deep. Do not wake her with your game of ‘what-ifs’ or disturb her rest with the things that can’t be changed. Play if you must, but fade with the sun when your time has gone… for she has other tales to write. I hear her sleep, breath whispering desires and hopes. Be still and rest well. Be still

Advent 22

Rehoboam made you his strength and on your soil David set his throne.
Many have fought for the right to your shelter, many have sought to make you their own.
Perched high on the hills of Judah, within reach of the most sacred place.
Behind the wall, the tower and fence, gripped firm by a concrete and wire embrace.
Precious city of many tongues, place of years and lives and history,
You gave to Rachel the gift of rest, sleep to Miriam the mother of mystery.
You are the inheritance of Ruth and Boaz and the ripest fruit of Jesse’s tree,
Sweet Bayt Lahm of scripture and song, calling of the pilgrims dream.
You stood sure under the stars as the angels sang, and before the soldiers gun,
Calling shalom to be reborn, in the blessing of the coming Son.

Home?

Sometimes I have an emptiness in my centre that feels like it might spread and eat me to my edges.

Sometimes it’s beyond full and I fear that those edges might rip and I will flood across the ground.

Rarely do I know equilibrium. Sometimes I long to sleep in certainty, to be peacefully numb. Mostly I want to feel and to feel means knowing.

Sometimes I would willingly jump to know the rush of unstoppable air. I would love to know what it is to lose everything. I would give and give to feel it all come back in a momentary look. And then be gone for ever.

Sometimes it scares me, to be alone, to not know real intimacy, that is where I dare not go! That is what wakes me in the dark and tears my soul. I know in that second I would give it all to feel for one breath, one glance, one kiss.

But there are days when I pray this wasn’t so. When the need is too strong and the emptiness wells. When I stare across the still water in hope and desire, looking for the surface to break with life. When the wind drops and suddenly I hear the silence and it is lonely.

Life in the time between time, In the moment that the wave breaks, in dropping cloud as it waits to release the rain, in the dawn and the dusk, in the delta between land and ocean. This is my home, like it or not!

Advent 21

The walls stand as a final barrier to whatever comes beyond.

The light of the dying sun picks out the cracks and the gaps in its solidity. Green tufts emerge from tiny spaces, finding a home in impossible places.

It feels so final, bringing to an end this long walk. This road at least is done. Shadows fade and all is weary.

Hands reach out and play across the stone, touching the roughness. The history of deep birth and pain filled watching. Light fingers connecting to an ending.

He looks and smiles, an incomplete smile. Filled with words and fears, but flowing with rooted, grounded love.

We stand together by the wall, wanting so much to knock at the gate. But needing this moment. needing to pause and look and touch this ending. Before the inevitability of the night.

So much weight, it is all so heavy.

The journey has both drained and bound us. We have been rod and staff for each other, guiding, steadying, guarding hearts. Carrying each other, carrying so much. Each night in the dark we held, and fingers that now brush brutal stone, gently met and assured.

This has been a road where we have been made. Where youth was lost, where we grew into each other.  Spirits now so intertwined that separation is beyond even cruel dream.

It began in dreams and vision, and ends with uncrushable reality.

We saw the rivers and rocks, the barren places and today we walked through mountain fields  rich with life.  So close to the holy place. We felt it near, we saw it on the edge of earth, but it was not our ending, we turned and walked on.

The sun has now washed away from even the lowest stone, Our feet stand in the last pink of today.  All there is now is to move into the time that is between. Find space to be and to wait again, wait for what rides in on tomorrow.

One path is done, the next is to come.