Seashore

Sand stretches as far as the squint eye can see;
And here is the sea in its striking and beating,
Tiding its way until breathless it climbs
No further.

The eternal motion; yet totally motionless,
Onwards it rolls and it stretches, the ocean
Of hope, death and all life's creation:
Our mother.

The wetness, the winging, the spraying, the crying,
The soaring and winging, the living and dying,
The wind surge, the roaring, the screaming, the sighing:
Forever.

The birds on the waves, on the wing, on the sand,
The crashing of waves as they reach for the land,
The beauty of fury, the death of the bland.
All over.

Love is here present - but violent as death;
Her breeze's soft kiss becomes gale's foulest breath;
The blue azured sky is the storm's closest kith,
Whenever.

The God of creation is present right here
Where the birth of the process announces each year.
Hear the whirling and screaming of gulls in their fear,
Forever.

Shine, Light

Shine light and shine forever in the dark;
Cast light where'er you can, cast light
Into the farthest corners of the night's
Dark depths where there's no light to shine.

Death will come to end the dreadful pain
To take the light of life from now
Rekindling it in vast eternity.
Pain has no dread when it is gone in death.

Light, lead on and leading, lead us where
Your glory shines into eternity
And in that Light lives all infinity
Where Love will lead us into Light.

Bubbles

Bubbles grow on spume topped waves,

Crashing down towards the beach below,

Or, blown by bubble-gum chewing kids

Splattering their cheeks within the burst,

Or sudsing the machine wash as it spins

Splashing soapy cleansing to the clothes.

These are the bubbles of our lives, here now

Then gone within a moment, burst forever.

Whether we believe or doubt it matters not,

But life is one great bubble of its own.

It starts to burst from that first day it's blown

First day at school

My first day at school

I remember as a wondering child -

Wild things on the wall,

An apple, a cat, a ball,

With letters written below

The better to read and recognise.

We slept, that first day in school,

In the afternoon, on camp beds,

With grey coarse blankets.   We slept.

I could not sleep; but at three

They deemed, it seemed, it necessary!

Silence

There is no silence!

Silence speaks with the sounds of creation;
The silent shore is wiled by pounding waves.
In every cemetery wild animals watch the graves
Singing their silent "De profundis" to the resters.

There is no silence!

On distant hills where no man seems to walk,
The peewits and the curlew call; the snipe and lark
Herald the coming evening, or, in fading dark,
The dawn of day when heaven's songsters sing.

There is no silence?

When I but sit in silence, separate from the day
And search the empty places of my heart,
Shutting out the mundane sounds and murmurings
And all my conscience thoughts; within that silence

Comes the voice of God.

Where are the dreamers?

A world of hurt is crying out
For urgent intervention,
A hand divine to reach and touch
And point a new direction.

Where is the vision, where to go
To bring about God's plan?
There is no sense of moving on
But rather, please the man!

The one who weeps, weeps on alone,
The hurt are left to die;
The lonely keep their solitude -
Yet few are asking why?

The problem is not mine, you say,
I didn't make it so.
I didn't ask their help, so why
Would they expect me to.

And so we battle on in life,
In selfish isolation:
The poor remain in dire straits,
The rich hold to their station.

Old men no longer dream their dreams
Nor young men see their visions;
They only stare out into space,
Or at their televisions.

Hannah and I and Green Eggs and Ham

Hannah and I read together a book
(At least Hannah read and I had a look).
The book was about some green eggs and ham;
I've never seen green ones as old as I am!
Green eggs and ham!   Now whoever heard
Of such a strange dish; it seems quite absurd.
I'm sure that like me you'd consider it strange
To find green eggs frying on your kitchen range.
I think if we found them we'd soon throw them out -
But that's not at all what this book was about!
And as for the ham - well - I really must say
That when I see some it will be a strange day.
Green eggs and ham!   Yet we found in this book
That at last he's persuaded to take one more look.
A look, then a taste, then a voice filled with glee,
"I do like to eat these strange things for my tea."
Green eggs and ham!   I'd soon throw them out,
And Nana would too, I don't have a doubt.
Your Mummy and Daddy would also agree
We shouldn't have green eggs and ham for our tea.
So maybe that story was not quite so true
As Sam-I-am tried to tell me and tell you.
We'll stick with our spinach and brocolli too,
Now they're green enough for both me and you.
Our eggs will be yellow, our ham remain pink;
That's alright for me.   Now.   What do you think?


(With apologies to Dr. Seuss)

Morning moment (in the grounds of Newman College, Birmingham)

At last, touched by the sun, departs the night,
Easing her soft shade into glowing light;
Waking and stretching comes the promised day,
Heralded by the chorus roundelay.

The trees reflect the scurrying clouds, with leaves
Which rustle gently in the cooling wind
And break to myriad dancing thieves,
To steal my concentration and my mind.

I'm lost, gone to far lands of faery fame,
Where dreamy creatures carry forth the day.
Now nothing that I dreamt can be the same,
And all reality has changed to fay.

MORNING PRAYER

Dear Lord, forgive a wandering errant mind,
Which dwells on nature's wealth, not its creator.
Help me in all the wonders I now find,
To see Your hand, Your love for every creature.

Be with me through the day I have to face.
Whatever comes I know you're always there,
To strengthen, guide, inspire and heal, in case
I feel myself descending to despair.

Painting the weather

I have never seen my image

Except as a friendly reflection

In rivers and pools.

I paint when the sun allows.

There is a moment when there is no sun.

Just a moment.   Wait a while.   No one

Can deny that now and again the sun's

Not there.   It's true you know, it's gone!

But this is also true: it will return.

I am a man of clouds!

Crowds do not please my eye;

I cannot stand to be

Seen, as I paint them fly

By.   With them I set my scene.

And what if the wind whips waves

Into white-topped cascades

Pounding the shore, the cliffs,

Breaking into a rainbow sparkle

As they destroy the work of ages?

I cannot capture these on paper.

The water and the paint have minds

Persistent in their own beliefs.

They lead me across new paths

And into ways I have not known

When I have watched the weather.

Marsh Harrier

The hawk was seen on a summer's day,

Lazily circling over the marsh.

The harsh sun glares on us as we stare

And dare to wait and watch awhile.

Here is a bird intent on its prey

On the marsh, on a summer's day.

It circles awhile then is joined by a mate.

We wait.   Together they fly for prey.

Their eyes, attentive to the needs of their kind,

Soar on the wind and wait for their prey

On the marsh, on a summer's day.

O, God made the wind and the sun and the day.

He provides the air and provisions the prey

For the bird He made to fly in the sun,

Awaiting the moment when it will be done,

When the prey is sighted, the dive is made,

The talons are locked and the kill complete.

Then he soars aloft with the dead in his feet

To feed himself, his mate, his young

To last the day, for the night is long -

His victory cry is his terrible song

On the marsh on a summer's day.

Richter (1915 - 1997) at the Barbican

O give us everything you have

And make the hall with music ring,

Make piers and roof and rafters sing,

Sviatoslav, Sviatoslav!

There is no sweat upon your brow

As you, composed, stand at the end;

There is no error to defend,

As turning round you take your bow.

Will you return to play again,

Or will you never grace this shore,

But be a stranger evermore

To play for gods, not mortal men.

For Jupiter in lofty heights

And Odin in Valhalla's halls

Will want your music in their walls,

They're such Olympian delights.

Or angels from the realms above

Will lay their harps aside for now,

Inviting you to take a bow

Where reigns the eternal God of Love.

But surely not just yet awhile;

On earth we need your glorious muse

To create sounds that still beguile

The fallen spirit.   Don't refuse!

Sviatoslav, Sviatoslav,

Hark now!   The sound that greets your ears

Is music of the heavenly spheres,

Sviatoslav, Sviatoslav!

Evening greeting

Gone, butterfly;

Gone grasshopper.

Come, fluttermoth;

Come, evening cricket,

Chirp in your place

To owls hooting,

Stars shooting;

Moon rise

In star skies.

Come, end-day!

Nowt a pound

Eh, Lad, ah says tha's nowt a pound,
Tha's nowt a pound, ah say.
Tha's nowt a pound, that's what ah've found,
Thy feet is med o' clay.
Tha wudn' even stand tha ground;
Th'art nowt a pound, ah say!

Tha back's a streak o' brightest yeller
An' watter's i' thi veins;
Tha's a bloodless, weedy type o' feller
Endahed wi' coward's brains!
Tha's nowt a pound, nor nowt a pound,
Th'art nowt a pound, ah say!

Thy gal's a bonny, pritty lass
Who'd blooms upon 'er cheek,
But thy be'aviour were so crass
She now looks pritty bleak!
Tha's nowt as pound, nor nowt a pound,
Th'art nowt a pound, ah say!

Tha wudden stand up to a man
An' yet yer did 'er wrong.
Tha cut 'er dead, an slapped 'er round
An' sang a coward's song. 
Tha's nowt a pound, now nowt a pound,
Th'art nowt a pound, ah say!

I 'ate a man like thee, I does,
Though 'man' for thee's too grand.
Just thee avoid the rest of us
Or else we'll mek thee stand
An' face the consequences of
Thy deeds, that fact's in 'and.
Tha's nowt a pound, nor nowt a pound,
Th'art nowt a pound, ah say!

The Pig

They say that the pig got so very big

Because he was bred to be so;

And he wallows in mud and burrows in dirt

Because it was meant to be so.

But whether the things that they say of the pig

Are true, I do not really know,

For a pig is a pig, very pink, round and big

And I know that is all that I know!

Painting "Sunk Island"

I looked up to the skies and there I saw

More colours than I ever thought I knew,

More colours than I recognised before;

I grasped them, held them, made an image true.

Bright blues and reds are laid on yellows, wet,

To run as wet on wet, to blend, until

I see the image that I want; and yet

They run their own way and forever will.

The fields reflect the skies; the waters, still,

Are pierced by weeds and reeds and grasses.

No house, no bird, no sign of life to fill

The scene: and yet life never passes.

A rat and a cat and Eve

Into the room came a big fat cat
And it looked around and it saw a rat!
The rat the cat saw sat on a mat
Wrinkling its nose like any old rat.
The cat growled softly on seeing the rat:
"I'll shift you, rat, from off that mat!"
It scurried and pounced but the wary rat
Had fled, vacating the worn old mat.
It dashed and hid 'neath an old felt hat -
Just fancy that - a rat under my hat!
And the cat looked round and saw no rat,
So it sauntered out saying, "There, that's that!"
But as soon as she'd gone, the cunning old rat
Looked out from the hat and seeing no cat
Scurried right back to sit on that mat.

Eve told me this story - I remember the time -
And somehow it all began to rhyme.
So we wrote it down to see how it looks,
For this isn't a poem you'll find in books.
We both agree that it looks alright
So we'll stop right here and say, "Good night!"

Christmas is coming

Christmas is coming,
The goose is getting thinner;
There'll never be enough of it
To feed us all at dinner.
The trouble is the feed's all gone,
The whole darned stock is done.
So what to do?   What will we eat?
Just what will be our Christmas treat?
The fish and chip shop's closed as well
On Christmas day as I've heard tell.
The stores don't open either, so
Somewhere else we'll have to go.
The cupboard's filled with many a tin
So there's no fear we'll be without;
And yet it really is a sin
We can't have goose with spud and sprout;
Followed by Christmas pud and cake
And wine enough to make a lake.
Ne'er mind for here's a tin of beans
It should go well with cabbage greens;
And here I've found a tin of rice
For pudding - that should be quite nice!
I promise you we'll have good cheer -
So merry Christmas and a good New Year!

Dying

Quietly she comes, I know not when;
Creepingly she moves, I know not how;
Searchingly she sees, I know not what;
Silently she speaks, I hear no sound.
Doped into sleep I lie and wait her touch;
Painfully I wait and hope for rest;
She comes apace, and yet her pace is slow;
I wait, I wait in vain, the night has passed.
Tomorrow I will wait again her touch,
And if she comes my last good bye is said;
I wait in hope, I do not hope for much,
Only to be laid among the dead,
And wait the final last day resurrection
When we will rise in glorious perfection.

Where have all the verses gone?

I use to write poetry, struggled to write

Of the things that affected my soul;

Of the things that in life had the greatest impact -

Now my muse has been placed on parole!

I used to write verses of all different types,

Some in fun, some dramatic, some sad;

Now I've lost inspiration, I've nothing to say -

Have I gone from the verse to the bad?

(Bum, bum..!)

Smile

Smile at me once again.   Please smile

And let the assembled worries of the day

Remain behind.   So shall we for a while,

Just you and I, let happiness beguile

Us both.   And may that same joy stay

At last to vanquish all that's vile!

Touching Heaven

I bent and touched the ground and fallen leaves
That lay and curled and crisply browned the earth.
It doesn't matter what a man believes,
Whether of dying or of springtime birth.
What matters is the touch, the grasp, the feel;
These are the things which truly are the real.

I  smelt the autumn leaves, the moulding soil,
And closed my eyes and felt the touch of mist:
I heard the sounds of countrymen who toil,
The sounds and sights I never can resist.
My mind and soul succumb to nature's spell;
I've touched the earth, and sense here Heaven as well.

God stays and looks at me and I at Him;
We pause together and we share the day.
The sun begins to sink, the light grows dim
And God has said what He has got to say.
It matters not if you believe or no,
Faith is the landscape where we all can go.

And when the baby cries or smiles at me,
Or when the child turns and grasps my hand,
Or when a tear in lovers' eyes I see,
I recognise they somehow understand.
They know that Heaven awaits us all nearby,
Where God will smile and sing His lullaby.

Absent muse

Whatever happened to my muse?
Has she gone off to warmer climes
Now that the gloom of winter's here?
Has she got tired of my mutterings
Deciding it is time to disappear?

I don't mind that for after all
She kept me much awake at night
And nagged me in the middle of the day
And dragged me from the lingering sight
Of beauty on a summer's day.

Oh yes she was a mistress hard,
Keeping me always to my task
With no respite.   She said if bard
You wish to be then heed when asked
And take your pen and write.
And so I did for many a day and night!

Now year on writing year has passed
And she, my muse, has fled at last.
I said I do not mind, and it is so.
I bade her many times to go.
But now I sometimes question why
She took my pen when off she went?
Yet asking gets me no reply:
She's gone and she will not relent!

Painters

HITCHENS

Wash -

Slabs of colour representing

Streams of light and shade imaging

Each splash.

BACON

Straining people from now

In pictures from the past;

Flesh cum flesh cum bloody meat,

And how!

NASH

War speaks to us all:

Hatchets of shapes staggering the skies,

And fields of blood - death asking why

We have to remember.

HOCKNEY

Bradford in Los Angeles.

The light of colours,

Bright to the point of brash,

Splashing the warehouse walls.

VAN GOGH

Pays Bas in Paris,

Sans ear and health and mind,

Attacked by the waiting rooks

At the Reaper's harvest time.

Jacob's well

I come here everyday and sit awhile,
Thinking of my life and what has passed;
My lonely life - it really makes you smile
When you see what has gone, and, oh, how fast!

This well we've used for centuries of years,
Left by our father, Jacob, so they say,
A place to sit and gossip with our peers
And draw the water that we'll use today.

A place to drink and quench the sun-caused thirst,
Damp dryness from the dust of rocky ways;
A place to ponder things, the best, the worst,
The glories and the tragedies of days.

Today I came as I have always done,
And here a stranger came and spoke to me,
Sought water as we chattered in the sun.
Although He was a man from Galilee.

Judaeans and Samarians never speak,
The enmity between us lies too deep.
And yet He asked directly, not oblique,
As though He was my kin. Was I asleep?

And did I dream the many things He said
About my life? How could this man have known?
Was He a prophet and a man of God,
Or even the Messiah? Had I known,

He said I would have asked Him for a drink
And He would living water give to me.
Waters that live? What was a girl to think?
And no more thirst? How could that come to be?

And then He talked to me of God and man,
And of Messiah too, now here with me.
He was Messiah, I, Samaritan,
Had met with Him, this man from Galilee.

I rushed into the town to tell them all
And back they came to see Him, hear His word.
This Son of God would lift us from the fall
And from all evil. Now it has occurred

To me to think about the matters of my life;
The things I've done, and said, that I ought not;
The things omitted, left unloved, the untrue wife,
Things that I'd left and thought I'd long forgot.

Messiah has told all and I, at peace,
Can turn to God and live a newborn way;
For now my spirit, in this new release,
Will sing to God in praise till Judgement Day.

Sing out the praise of Him from Galilee,
Who has sat here and turned to us His face;
Praise God and praise His Son with me,
All you who come to shelter in this place.

The Kingdom of Heaven

Can you not see?   Have you not heard?   I thought

That all the world knew of this thing.

The grain of mustard seed is surely sought

By those who know, just so that they can bring

The story to a world which lies asleep,

In darkness where the light cannot yet touch,

And distant thoughts of grace are all that keep

The last abyss at bay.   We know that such

Seed beds will soon receive the Gospel truth

To take it as their own that they might grow

And they and we reach to the Cross.   We both

Will be a mustard tree, which all will know.

So spreads the Word, and so God's Kingdom here

Will come again and darkness disappear.

Winter walk

white

and cold

crisp

ice blast

and crunchy 

blow

hands

burning and

red

  sparkling 

crystals of

snow

Tell me the truth

Tell me the truth.
Do not hide it;
Do not conceal, or reveal
It in a different form.
Tell me as it is.
Do not disguise,
Nor, feeling wise,
And anxious to protect,
Tell it in some other way;
But just the truth
In its reality.
Tell me now
That I might know its form,
Its shape and its totality.
Tell me the truth.
Do not protect me.
Do not tell me something else.
Tell me the truth!

Wallpaper

I see thee from the corner of my eye

Standing stiff and proud; and now enrolled

Thou threateneth me.   I understand not why.

I know that soon thy challenge will unfold

Though I give thee a pasting.   I’m not skilled,

And thou may paste me more ere all’s fulfilled.

I’ll take thy measure and I’ll cut thy face

Before I stretch thee out and slip and slap;

But as I pick thee up I’ll feel th’embrace

Of all thy limbs and thou wilt stick me back!

Because of this I’ll warrant thou’lt be hung

For all to see; for that’s where thou belong.

Fossils

Fossils

How the wind blows to make the waves play

On Mappleton Beach on a fierce winter’s day.

How the surf crashes and, breaking, it roars,

Grabbing the cliff in its spray-spitting jaws.

How the cliff falls to the waves’ fierce embrace;

How the clay crumbles all over the place,

Shedding its burden of thousands of years

So that many-formed, aeons-old, life reappears.

Metamorphed stones from some unknown seabed,

How still lies the life that the dying cliffs shed:

Belemnites, ammonites, crinoids and more

Litter the living and dying seashore.

And you and I wander and wonder and look

Trying to read more of this palaeo-book.

Chapter on chapter is opened.   Then more

Is given to us as we walk through the door

Of the past brought to present, the exposing of years

Of vanished creation.   Once more it appears.

Collect where you can, for soon the new tide

Will reach out again and brush all here aside.

So brave the waves’ retching and all the spray tears

And stroll once again in this garden of years;

Relish these times as we walk the beach shelves:

We’ll all soon be gone to this earth home ourselves.

Lament for a dead hedgehog

The staring eyes of night in fast succession 
Reach through the threads of heaven, where they fall, 
Pearling the glass and darkly metalled road.   
How can my soul lament?   How can I feel 
For this life crushed beneath my careless wheel.   

Now in the dry, the dawn, the day's new light,
He lies where he was slain – who grieves his plight?

The faerie wood

There's a faerie wood on a mountainside
By a darkland glen with a stream beside;
And into the wood the fay folk ride,
As the moon hides behind the clouds.

I heard the sound of the elfinhorn,
As the first light's glow announced the dawn,
And the wood grew still as the day was born,
To banish the faerie crowd.

"Don't enter the wood, my bonny young bride,
Stay in our bed, stay here at my side."
But my love had fled for her heart had lied,
As to the faerie she rode.

There's a faerie prince on a faerie horse
Who rides in the wood as the faerie hunts course,
Chasing the hare through bracken and gorse
In the depths of the faerie wood.

That prince has stolen my own dark bride,
The girl who I took to stay by my side
Forever. The sad night owls cried
To see her enter the wood.

She was my bride for so few hours,
Dressed in lace and bedecked with flowers.
She held me, we kissed in our nuptial bower,
But now she is gone to the wood.

"Macushla, I weep for your raven hair.
My sweetheart I grieve for your feet so bare.
My love come back to our cottage fair
And forget the faerie wood."

My voice sounds hollow and echoes the while,
I hear far laughter, the kind to beguile.
I weep to myself to remember her smile.
Now she's left me and gone for good.

"What would you want with a bride of mine?
Where will you take her to be with your kind?
Where can I look?" I know I'll not find
My love in the depths of that wood.

I have hunted and searched for many a year.
I have looked in the sunlight and when stars appear.
I have wearily searched for my own darling dear
Through the depths of that dark, dark wood.

Creation's song

Creation’s song

The mountains rise in glory whilst the forests rest below,

They make a verdant contrast to the peaks dressed white with snow;

The oceans roar their greeting and the clouds respond with storm,

The wind roars out its orders just to make the waves conform;

Till they rise in spume-topped fury and race towards the shore,

Where they smash upon the rock falls, shake the cliffs right to the core.

And I heard this distant thunder and the way all nature sings

Of the spiritual beauty of such fine material things.

For the splendour and the greatness, the gentle and the strong,

Are the individual stanzas of the great Creator’s song.

We raced across the wave tops with our sails filled by the wind,

Like the seagulls soaring freely, knowing not where they will land.

Then we dived beneath the breakers to survey the coral scene,

Watching multicoloured fishes in their thousands past us stream.

We sat upon the beaches and we looked out from the shore

Whence we seemed to see a picture that we’d never seen before.

Where did the ocean come from? From where its myriad life?

Its quietness and its calmness, its storming and its strife?

It came from out of chaos, from the great Creator’s hand;

He poured out the mighty ocean before He made the land.

Then He raised the mountains skywards with a mighty wrenching reach,

So we’d recognise the lessons that He alone can teach;

And the tempests, rains and snowstorms still wear down the jagged peaks

As they wind and whistle past them – it’s as though creation speaks

Not in a voice of softness, but with a fearful scream,

Until there comes the silence and the peace which will redeem.

So we stand and look in wonder: now there sounds a softer song,

Sung by a gentler singer to wipe out all that’s wrong.

Now there’s peace lies on the snow face and gentle is the slope,

For the world of storm and violence has become a world of hope

Where a mother holds her baby as it suckles at her breast,

Newborn nature’s miracle lying quietly at rest.

The bonding of its parents, the statement of their love

Is the trinity of family like the Trinity above.

This fragile human being demanding human care,

From its parents finding peace and love and tenderness to share –

All these are part of nature, each has its part to play

In the statement of creation; their lives have much to say.

Whether mighty beating ocean, or jagged mountain peaks,

Or trees or flowers or people, through them all creation speaks

Of the mighty hand of Goodness, of the power of the Lord,

Of the judgement and destruction, the sentence and the sword;

Of the gently caring mercy and the all embracing peace,

And the care of our Creator Whose Love will never cease.

Beneath a cross

Beneath a cross

I stand beneath a cross upon a hill,

And looking up into the eyes of God,

I feel the pain and hurt as time stands still.

The anguish of the Christ here suffering will

Succeed in making us the friends of God

Now hung upon this cross upon a hill.

Can we believe in Him who hangs until

We feel the cleansing of His pouring blood

And share His pain and hurt as time stands still;

Or will we yet again reject God’s will,

Ignoring what He’s promised, what He did,

And hang Him on this cross upon a hill?

Man lies and cheats and steals and has His fill

Of all dark things, rejecting what is good,

Ignoring pain and hurt as time stands still.

So does mankind forever tend to kill,

Rather than protect the things he should,

Whilst standing by a cross upon a hill,

Ignoring pain and hurt as time stands still.

Crucifixion

Good Friday

A wooden cross leads on to death.

There is no height, nor depth

Past which it will not reach;

For it will breach the very doors of death

Itself, and lead on to eternal life.

The eternal God cries out Himself

In manhood’s self gained agony.

There is no loss of life in death –

Not in this agonising final breath

Which He is breathing out for me.

This cross will bring us in the end

To a moment of eternity

Wherein the world, and all it is, will die.

Die? Yes! But then He’ll rise again

And reach divine hands out to me.

God grant that as I stand and watch

I’ll feel the hurt and know the pain.

Grant, in this moment, I might catch

A glimpse of where His suffering leads:

May I, through His death, new life gain.

Crucifixion

Crucifixion.

The day is dark and darker grows the night,

For night has come before the day has passed;

A mother dares to look on such a sight,

Her hanging, nailed son has breathed His last.

In front of her the tree is lonely, flanked

By others of the same, where they are ranked

Bearing the bodies of two condemned thieves.

They rant against their fate and taunt the Son.

One speaks in torment but there’s one believes

An innocent hangs here. What has He done?

[Into a timeless warp of space there hangs

Eternity and all eternal Love.

Of sorrow gone the solid silence sings

Casting torn veils to the heavens above.

He bleeds and dies, we weep and hopeless wait,

And wonder if this cross can be the gate?]

The soldiers wile away the weary wait

Beneath the cross by casting careless dice.

Their pay they risk but what about His fate?

They care not; let the judgement passed suffice.

Divide His clothes to augment their meagre pay,

But not the seamless robe – they let that stay.

To speed their death (for day soon breathes its last)

One checks and breaks the legs of the two thieves

But the blessed spirit now has sighed and passed;

Spear pierces flesh; the observing guard believes!

Reach down this battered body from the cross;

Reach down the bruised and rough torn flesh of God;

Reach down the Christ and, Mother, hold your loss:

And yet she knows this moment is for good.

Now all mankind breathless awaits first light,

The Easter sunrise banishing death’s dark night!

[Buried is the moment and the death

Of this expression of eternal love;

The sorrowing mother holds her final breath

And weeps her doloured tears to heaven above.

Now all must wait and waiting, all endure –

To wait and hope Love’s resurrection’s sure!]

None so blind

None so blind

When you were lying, bleeding, dying

Did I walk by in pride?

Did I avert my shameful eyes

And pass on the other side?

When you were hanged on a cross for me

Did I at the time deny?

Through blood filled eyes that could hardly see

You looked your question: Why?

And when at last they laid your head

In a tomb hid from earthly light,

Did I help roll the stone to bury the dead

Lest my conscience quake at the sight?

Then how can I ask you now to forgive

Whilst my guilt is a weight of shame?

Yet I know no more how I might live

Save in your holy name.

Via Crucis

Via Crucis

Weep now, my soul, for shortly comes the hour

When earth and heaven meet and die,

When creation’s blood is giv’n to pour

In answer to our last despairing cry.

Judge not, lest you are judged; but judged he is

And sentenced to a cruel death on wood,

Wood he must carry to a bitter hill

On which he’s nailed and fastened for our good.

Who greets him on his way or shares his grief?

Simon, Veronica, his mother, all are there.

Women mourn as it is their belief,

“Weep for yourselves,” he says, “your own despair.”

He falls but dragged upright he stays his course –

The soldiers will not let him die too soon.

Simon bears the wood, as soldiers force

Strong shoulders on this Friday afternoon.

He hangs three hours and sometimes speaks a word:

“Take this my mother, John and be her son.”

“Join me in paradise,” the good thief heard;

“I thirst,” he breathes then gasps and cries, “It’s done!”

His body hangs on this foul gibbet cross

Until it is allowed it shall be taken

To Mary, who, mourning her bitter loss

Yet knows the tortured world is not forsaken.

Of all of us, she lives and trusts in God,

Your father; she knows not quite how or when

But only that his hand fulfils the deed;

And that you’ll live and love and heal again.

The Apostles

The Apostles

Twelve men; an odd bunch all.

Who’d pick them to start a revolution?

Twelve men, not much to look at,

A motley crew – could be taken

For the lager louts of their time!

Twelve men of working class origins,

Not to be trusted – but trust was theirs.

Twelve men to shape a world or catch a fish,

Betrayers, traitors and doubters, they.

Yet they could leap from the boat

And tread their way across the deep,

Braving storms because of who He was.

They could step into the cauldron

Of middle-eastern politics

Trodden down by a despot’s heels;

Swallowed in a mighty empire’s grasp;

Forgotten outpost of a seething, plotting nation;

Despite which they stood out in the street

And preached the good (the glorious) news

That all men are free (and women too.)

There is no more domination;

No nation can control the hand of God,

Reaching from a rough hewn cross

His bloody hand to mother and to son.

A mighty wind blows them across the world.

A spirit lights their lives with tongues of flame.

They cry in love and peace the name

Above all names; cried to a hungry world.

And then they die, killed to live forever.

Your kingdom comes apace through these,

Your chosen few, who have become an army

Crying out for justice in a bitter paining world.

Maranatha is their call, the cross their banner,

And the song of angels is their battle cry.

Victory and Empire have been won

By our God who will rule forever.

A loved one's eyes

A loved one’s eyes.

It is, I think, a lovely thing, and wise

When holding hands or strolling side by side

To smile and gaze into your loved one’s eyes.

And I will tell you something more besides

Those things which only fools have yet defined:

Love is indeed a lovely thing, and wise.

And when you hear a baby’s gentle cries,

Responding to your reassuring chide:

Then smile and gaze into your loved one’s eyes.

The sadness in our hearts, a smile belies,

But by a loved one will not be decried –

Love is indeed a lovely thing, and wise.

Though all the world will wallow in its lies

And laugh at love, or even more, deride:

Still, smile and gaze into your loved one’s eyes.

For in the end we all must recognise

What things to grasp and what to cast aside:

Then know it is a lovely thing and wise,

To smile and gaze into your loved one’s eyes.

Feast of Love

The feast of Love

The cross weeps freely with Love’s holy blood;

Extended arms in violent agonies

Writhe in the anguished pains of death,

Their gift of Love.

A stone stands rolled, unsealing death;

For death is dead and Love at last lives on

To share across the ages God’s new gift,

The gift of Love.

“This is my body, given now in Love;

My blood which wept in death in Love;

My spirit, risen for my Father’s Love,

My shared Love.”

“So share with me, serving each one in Love;

Receive me and I’ll live in you in Love;

Creation will sing out with you and Me

My song of Love.”

Oh would I were a little child

Oh would I were a little child.

Oh, would I were a little child

To see the splendour of the field

And wonder at the flowers wild.

Oh, would I had a simple view

Of every tiny thing that grew

And gathered in the morning dew.

Oh, would I had the greatest trust

In God’s provision from the dust

Of all I need – such things I must.

I must respond in prayer to Him

Who lights my darkest corners, dim

With all my fears. My heart would brim

With greater love and joy and peace.

I’d walk with Him and never cease

To thank my God for my release.

Please, Lord, make me a little child

In heart and soul. Thus may I yield

A greater harvest from life’s field!

Peter J Ainscough

Journeys

Journeys

For days the sun keeps pouring out it’s unrepentant heat

On yellow sands and hard baked earth, too burning hot for feet

To tread their cindery journey, or to progress on their way,

Until the night-time’s tempering has redeemed the cooler day.

I watched the night-time schooner regain the harbour wall,

Protected from the sea’s storms and the unforgiving squall;

The sails once set out proudly now tattered, hanging down,

Displaying hard fought victory to the ignorance of the town.

Across the painted sky and acknowledging the clouds

Flies a spitfire spouting victory for the benefit of crowds,

Whose necks are craning upwards to dare to see the sight

Of this sleek machine of slaughter, screaming loudly at the light.

And here are daring children on step stones ‘cross the beck,

Leaping lightly, skipping, (like sailors on the deck

Dancing their crazy hornpipe), no fear of storms to come,

When, mud marked, they return to their parents back at home.

The world rolls on its journey, as morning turns to day,

Day becoming evening, then night’s new roundelay;

And season runs to season, and year declines to year,

The sun shines and the moon too, God’s sign that He holds dear

The universe created by His own almighty hand

The skies, the clouds, the heavens, the oceans and the land.

They carry on their journey to that last omega point

When he claims it back forever, all that He did anoint.

For life goes on its journey, as it has always done,

From seas to land, to heavens, from earth warmed by the sun;

Journeyings that can vary from the simpler to the greater -

But the greatest of our journeys is back home to our Creator.

Peter J Ainscough

ANNUNCIATION

ANNUNCIATION

Angel gloried light in sunset sky;

Though now you doubt, yet do not question why

Or how. Accept His word in gentle innocence,

Knowing pain will be your recompense.

But feel the God-filled Joy as you accept,

And sense the future that you will create:

The death-made joy that then will emanate,

When wine from water will be our precept.

The baby leaps within the mother’s womb

Then rises from the rocky stone-blocked tomb.

Precursed by angels and by skin clad John,

We’ll light the world with this your given gift,

To lift from shadows all this demi-mond

And crown Him in His crucifixion lift.

The universe rests in your questioning face;

In answering “Yes” you speak a joyous grace.