Tag: Poetry

Advent 13

The road is a lonely place to wake, every grain of earth and fallen leaf is new. The way the light breaks through the landscape, the smell on the first breath of wind, when the silence is split by alien cries and dawn greets in a foreign tongue.

Eyes take time to adjust and the mind a moment behind. The body feels all out of place and time, as it stretches the aches of the night, easing joints bruised by the makeshift rest and limbs weary from the road. The sights and smells, sounds and sensations of yesterday now weave into the whole journey’s pattern as space for today is made.

Breaking the fast brings some grounding. Watching companions feeling their skin, tired, tight and rough. Massaging warmth and life into still sleeping bones. Consuming heat from the steaming drink, feeling it seep slowly through the numbness.

Then we begin to prepare, binding struggling stretched muscles, patching torn feet. Packing what was pulled in haste from bags and blankets as the darkness had rushed in. Loading and balancing, smoothing out folds and lumps that might become knives and rasps through the day.

This is the life on the traveller, the wanderer, the pilgrim. The morning becomes a ritual that floats on the strangest of seas. Each day the farewells feel more distant but the faces of family grow closer. The further we go, the more painful the parting. The closer we get to our ending the more the uncertainty wounds. Things that seemed lifetimes away now stabbing fear in each step and each stop.

Do they stand on the wall and watch? Do they even know we are coming? Will the gatekeepers be ready to welcome us in, will the peacemakers open their arms? Will the fire be stoked, will the kettle be on? Will there be food enough for all?

But those are questions ahead and right now it is time to walk. God of the road be before us, God of the stream be alongside, God of the sky light our path, God of the fields and the furrows nourish, God of the dawn light our way, God of the hearth bring companionship, God of the journey lead on.

Advent 12

There is rhythm in my travel, in the beating heart I hold,

I hear it in my breathing, in the stories I’ve been told.

It’s there in the air as the wind moves, it’s there in the chorus of life.

It forms tunes all around that I sing to, painting melody thick with a knife.

The songs ease the passage of distance, taking me places that I’ve never been.

I’m finding the truth in each step, and meaning in sights that I’ve seen.

I need to keep sure as we move, the direction we head still feels right.

The promise breaks brilliant ahead, behind nothing is left but the night.

This is the road of our Fathers, we have to return to their place.

But we know that we’re not moving backward, it’s an uncertain future we face.

The world had seemed scored to perfection, then the sweet voice spoke into the dark,

It started to play a new rhythm, dawn harmonies sung by the lark.

We sang legends and lyrics of promise, as we waited to hear what came next,

We sang songs that were bigger than all of us, of a world that is woven and flexed.

Of eras and ages before us, when the spirits danced over the seas,

When the ground that we walk on was forming, when they loved in the shade of the trees.

We sang of times before time was first counted, and wisdom held firm to each hand,

We wept when she told of its ending, as hate burned like fire through the land.

Now I hear something new in the distance, the rhythm becoming a beat,

It pounds in my heart and my soul, as we walk it is under my feet.

So this is the way of our journey, familiar yet totally new,

As we follow the songs of the future, and dance in the promise of you.

Advent 11

This season we remember women.

Women, not unusual, not different or strange.
not special, peculiar, not even unique,
They did not wear the clothes of men, or use men’s tools and words,
They simply spoke as women speak and stood as women stand.
One hundred years ago they marched, they cried and even died,
Just to be heard as women, nothing more and nothing less.
‘Just’ women, incredible, powerful, ordinary women.

This season we celebrate women.

The mothers, the sisters, the lovers.
The workers, the leaders, the speakers.
The carers, the holders, the healers.
The teachers, the builders, the makers.
The artists, the poets, the players
The priests, the prophets, the seers.
The women with faith, who speak and change life.
The women who take up the call that they hear,
The women who trust who they are, what they have.
The women who carry the future for all,
who bear the load that others can not,
The women who know they are blesséd,
who redefine strength and beauty and love,
and offer it back to the world.

The season we thank God for all women.

Advent 10

Today we must begin a new living.  A living that embraces whatever it encounters, a living that refuses to conform, refuses to be ‘normal’. It will energetically embrace it’s beautiful uniqueness and be the life God’s given us whatever that may be.

It will leap with yelps of joy into the river, and swim.  Swim like swimming is breath itself. It will dance upon the sand and dirt with colourful abandon, to melody unwritten and songs that do not rhyme.

This is a day to celebrate a future we don’t yet know, and trust it will be ours alone and it will be amazing.  Yes, there will be rocks, we will get cut, we will be bruised. But we can take no other stream, or dance to another’s tune.

May we be blessed by difference, by the quirky and the crazy, the colourful and awkward, the things that don’t fit in.  May we be blessed by those we play with, and those we need to fight.  May we be blessed by outcasts and those without a voice.  May we welcome those who challenge us to live this life we’re given, and those who show us how to live a life that’s unrestricted.

Today, we breathe, and dance, and play, and swim. Today we chose to live the life that leads us who knows where.

Advent 9

We think the strong will change the world, and seed a better way, 
But look and see the Kings and Lords who crush it in their will.
The weak, the vulnerable and willing, are true bearers of new earth,
Those who can be planted deep, to die wrapped in the soil,
To give what tiny portion’s theirs for a good beyond themselves,
And surrender who they are to nourish grace, and peace, and love.
Watch the governors, the powerful, clothed in precious ego,
The jewelled and the robed, weilding staffs and polished swords.
They do not see, they cannot hear, their souls and minds are deaf,
To the gentle voice that calls and weaps from the centre of the storm.
The song calls to the young, to the oppressed and the neglected,
To the hungry and the homeless, to the poor and to the blind.
To the one who finds no peace in sleep, the one who dreads the dawn.
To the mother and the father of the babe thats not yet born.

Tender Dawn

In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78+79

dawn rising,
filling the void with sending blue,
washing through the darkness,
seeping between hard edged living
crossing the divide.
promise and potential flow,
eroding meaning into the shapeless,
the noiseless into melody,
the alien into nature.
stretching and shunting time,
expectations moulding into purpose,
purpose into pain,
In the now falling brilliance.
blue shifts to grey.
fears of the night now relieved,
are absorbed by fears of the day.
loss enveloped, in sleep bites again,
wounds dulled, resharpened by the light.
can the cold dawn transform?
can it pour into the hollow,
can it flow.
can it flow.
can it embrace and surround,
can it lift and hold.
easing me on,
leading me out,
can the rising dawn be tender?

Advent 8

I am the story of a different time,
A beginning time,
A birthing time,
A time when all was dark.
A time when all was possible.
A time when all was not.
A time when all could be.
A time when all was energy.
A time when all was love.
In this time began.
A word began to whisper,
A light began to spark,
A breath began to flow,
A sphere began to spin,
A world began to form,
A life began to beat,
And it was good.

It was then that I began to dream,
And the story wrote itself.
I saw the waters flood the land,
I saw the land fight back,
I saw it rise and split and move,
I saw it burst with fire and flame,
I saw it twist and crack and tear,
I saw it crumble and form rich earth,
And from those seas and in that soil,
I felt the beat of simple hearts,
I felt the first life jump and dance,
I felt it swim and fly and run,
I felt it all,
And it was good.

And then I saw it rot and mould,
As greed and power and death,
Took over from the waters,
And flooded out to drown the land.
And as I saw, I cried.
I saw it stir and raise its head,
I saw it spit and spew and shit,
It fouled its way through everything.
And I felt it.

I felt the pain of the innocent.
I felt the cry of the abused.
I felt the ache of the grieving,
I felt the sob of the lonely,
I felt hunger of the just,
I felt the loneliness of the lovers,
And it was agony.

I felt the pain as they turned on me.
They blamed me and I felt their shame.
But in the night they knew,
They knew what they had lost,
And in the night they cried.
And some could not hold back the tears when the dawn had come.
Hope lived, its roots were deep.
And so I’m here.

Wait…

Advent 7

The day has come to kill the future,

We’ve cast it as a golden god, and raised it on the plain.

Then we’ve spent our nights in worship, of the thing we want to be.

The day has come to kill the future,

For if we don’t we leave no space, into which it can be born.