Look into my face, can you see?
The sketches of my past
smiles and frowns etched with age
marks of honor, sun-baked.
Look into my eyes, can you see?
A reflection of yourself?
Glinting shadows sparkle and fade
To soften the hard edge life of late
Read between the lines of living
on the cusp of heaven, grow wings.
Ease, peace, please, appease.
Muster courage, move to light
Hand holding tight.
Look into my face, can you see
You?
Photo credit: Swiss Alps by Ilze Haynes (C) 2019
The feathered bird flips lightly on the low bough and peers
Suspiciously at fronds of smoke waving past his ears
Roundly Red and pale Peach bellies, proudly hide and seek
Circling hoard of humans who visit once a week
Curiously they walk below, felling trunks, digging peat
Bouncing round the fire waving sticks with things to eat
Harmlessly they shape our wood into a tiny home
A private nest, motionless, watching while Red roams.
I’d lost the people I loved. In the midst of the daily decisions and jaw-clenching nightly invocation, all the notable ones were scarce and silent. Anger, sadness, and pain rolled around my vital organs and stuttered my speech meditating on thoughts of misdeeds and words misspoken that persisted in my mind. Here lies life, the new day begets another. This solemn song is sung in chorus in palliative waiting rooms, tall stories forgotten and oft-loved ones replaced by diagnostic faces – with wry, stale smiles. A hand lies upon them, hemmed in front and behind, an eye for an ego, release in freedom lie.
Reflecting heaven’s light
captured by stillness in breath
obscuring the shallow beneath
stones settle buried at rest
It’s the things that aren’t said that hurt the most.
I can hear the tower clock chime from my pillow
It is the only constant I hear.
But even this clock;
I envy the care and attention
it receives for its restoration.
I hope to have its constancy at heart.
Spiritus Sanctus:
‘O Holy Spirit, as the sun is full of light, the ocean full of water,
Heaven full of glory, so may my heart be full of thee.’
I love all the unseen things about you
I wait for them to make themselves known
a word, a look, a gesture, a smile
a gift of Love – one treasure I own.
When I stand before the body, in the flesh
I am confused. It’s You that I miss.
I respond in words I don’t understand
I lose part of myself in this.
Waiting for the unseen,
the centre of our being
to come forward again
In the Spring.
When you play, your work, your dream
it is there – the unseen
making music in my ears
as sweet as a song of songs.
Sweet fruit. Spring flush
Eat, dear friends, and drink your fill of love¹
The days were Made for this.
The season of singing has come.²
Love stronger than death
burns like a Mighty fire
Many waters cannot quench
Nor rivers sweep it away.³
By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life. –Psalm 42:8
Image source: ‘Looking through the trees to the stream’ by John Groves
A rare bird indeed
we are exotic, an ancient lineage
migrated south.
We are two much, one to know another
protect, preserve our own our offspring,
territorial ties that wound
What we love, what is it?
The glorious plumage?
A splendour to behold
The sound of our call, cool, titillating talk?
are but echoes in the sky.
No, much more than that.
The most glorious sound to adore
is the heart beating in our chests
Listen, my friend, keenly –
look with those two deep oceans you keep.
See – every word, move, motion,
every flash in the eye, affection
reveals the timbre of the heart.
Barstools, beers and lonely cheers
Sideways glances, sound and fears
Top of the loft, corner of the street
Just dropping off, by chance again we meet
Perched high above on a leather bus seat
Looking down on you as sun and horizon meet
Living through pictures on your wall
Passing on paper cranes, love and all
Resonating strings and sings around
Searching for words unspoken sound
Fathom feeling depths unknown
Silence falls like shell shock tone
Rivers of lyrical, satirical rhymes
Flood down the mount of eternal time
A single vase of living water, blooms
Tapped from the source in our living rooms
I didn’t see steal your car
I didn’t wreck your life
I didn’t break your heart
I didn’t want be your wife
I take you as you are
No longer keep a score
In fact, it was you, my friend
Who knocked upon my door.
It is not a situation where
what you emanate
reaches me unchanged,
to reflect what you radiate.
It is the essence of my being
to take in and absorb
the streams of mercy
that flow out from your source;
feed me and make me whole,
make me grow beyond my limits –
strong, broad, I tower over all.
You give your all to me,
I soak up your energy
preoccupied with you
Until the fall..
Count the stars of heaven 