And when I stopped
The arms-length
Distancing of
Shadows in me
And saw the Light which
Threw them,
Then I knew
The truth of me:-
That even the darkness
Cannot hide You,
Or obscure Your love
Eternal, true.
For unconditionally
You find me
In my dark
Condition
And throw Your
Light to cast shadows
Out
By the truth of You
In the truth of me.
Category Archives: Poetry
Beautiful
Beautiful A
Beautiful S
Beautiful J
Beautiful mess
By Abigail, aged 7
Deep calls to deep
From the deep of me
My genesis voice
Calls out to be known,
And in love, enfolded.
In silent roar the Voice
Echoes back from deep
In exultant song of
Everlasting love, enfolding.
“Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.”
(Psalm 42:7 ESV)
The Winter Sun
The winter sun
Struggles to rise,
As lazy dawn still
Wrapt in slumber
Turns over to lie in
A few moments longer.
The sugar dusted
Scene emerges,
As blush-pink sky gives way
To sharp blue.
Indoor warmth deceives
The harsh outdoors,
As defiantly cold as
An Eskimo’s stare.
Air so cold it burns
The cheeks and
Unfeelingly removes
All feeling from ears
And toes.
Yet this freeze frame
Still of suspended animation,
Brittle white,
Allows perceiving of
Colour and form
Which summer’s
Bright flourish hides,
But which presents
For a moment, still,
Under the winter sun.
Silent
Today I have nothing to say.
So I will hold my tongue
And remain silent.
I will not be tempted to
Offer a platitude as empty
As a rattling tin, rusted
From years of neglect.
What can be said that is
Worthy of this moment?
Some moments are simply
Too deep to contain words;
Too heavy for feather-words
That float away on the wind.
Sometimes the obscurity of
Darkness is just the shield we need,
Where definitions diffuse
And answers hide away.
To hang our heads low and weep is
Better bread than much of
What is offered on the table
To feed our hungry souls.
We know we cannot pretend
To really understand, but all
Too often we pretend that we do.
Let there be silence today.
And tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow.
And if in time we find a word, or words
With Enough gravity to hold them down
Then, maybe then, I will break my silence.
(In response to the Sandy Hook massacre on 14 December 2012)
In Deeper Love
Looking and seeing
What is, and has been,
Of our unbreakable
Oneness;
In deeper love
Made true by
Light’s soft unveiling,
And harsh exposure.
These ten turns of
Life’s changing scene
Have revealed much for
Beholding, and more
To be beheld, as
This shared life grows
Ever upwards, outwards,
From roots in rich soil
Evergrowing the reaches
In deeper love.
(For my beloved wife, on the Xth anniversary of our promise to love each other forever)
Autumn
Autumn’s show of strength,
Turning once great oaks
In prime of presence
And greenest splendour,
Into frail and wizened
Silhouettes on broken furrows.
Barren fields of harvest
Spent, light waning,
Dropping, pulling down
The leaves to earth, and
Drawing cold down like a
Blanket over scented soil.
Crisp auburn turn,
Spreads a coloured carpet
Of beautiful decay,
And earth’s warm womb
Opens up to incubate
And store, before winter
Steals the day in night.
Warmth, held back, will wait
Until the turn again comes;
When the seed yields its shoot,
And the slumber its sleeper,
When life erupts in softness
With the turn of the weathered
Wheel of time and season.
How the turn of autumn
Comes so beautifully fast,
Relentlessly deconstructing
Nature’s flourish until
Only echo and memory of it
Remain in the remains.
Hard
My God specialises in ‘hard’.
When He sweated blood knowing
The cup He must drink from;
When He died there in the
Darkness of the 9th hour,
Abandoned and alone;
When He didn’t stay dead
But broke death’s power, forever;
He showed us what ‘hard’ looks like.
He chose ‘hard’ for us
So that when we face our
Own hard times; when we
Feel we can’t carry the load,
Or manage on our own,
We can look to Him who
Specialises in ‘hard’, and know
That nothing is impossible, and
In Him all things are possible,
If we but dare to believe.
So ‘hard’ for us becomes not
That which we cannot change,
Nor carry, nor manage on our own,
But having faith in the One
Who can change anything,
Who can carry our load,
And who will, in the hardest
Moments of your life,
Carry you through it
With arms that cannot fail.
(On the day of Jack’s stroke)
Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing
It’s not that I’m not sorrowful,
Or not feeling the loss
Of things, and time; I am.
It’s not that being laid low
And being held back
Have not pricked the bubble
Of my dreams; they have.
It’s not that the price I paid
To come was not high, and
For my family too; it was.
It’s not that the expectations
And hopes of others on me
Here do not weigh heavily
On my soul; they do.
And yet as I reflect and
Consider my feelings,
And look at what has been,
How my Father has held
Me close and met with me;
I see that yes, I am sorrowful,
Yet always rejoicing.
2 Cor 6:10
Written in Uganda
Hope for tomorrow
Hope for tomorrow
And faith for today.
Will I see beyond that
Which is before me today?
In the blur, the defocussed
View of what will be, then,
The sharpness of now,
And it’s glaring ungloss,
Claims to be the future now,
But shows only a frame of
The longer story of my life,
Which tomorrow will tell
A better ending than today.
Hope for tomorrow
And faith for today.
The last word is yet unwritten,
But hope will be its theme
And faith will be its muse.