A DESERT PSALM

From the deserts of our empty lives
We cry to you, O Lord.
As owls hooting in the wilderness
We search the horizon for succour;
In the drought of our loss
We find only jagged stones
And burning sand -
Where are you God?
Only our voices echoing on the wind
Disturb the thundering silence.

Then gently on the breeze
The scent of jasmin
And through the stillness of the sun’s last rays
The sky turns pink then purple;
till in the deep dark of night the air comes heavy,
Burdened with oppressive heat
and sultry indignation:
And then as love gives birth again,
The first sweet drops of rain
To slake our croaking thirst.

So, hidden, are you there?
In shadows, is it you who reaches out
Inviting us to breakfast on the sand?
No recognition yet,
Just arms out-held;
And trembling, we come close
As you receive our pain
And tears, and make
Our place your own.

And at that breakfast feast
So well prepared
Are all your friends
Across the ages of the past,
And the moments of our lives;
And they are there
And we are there
With you, together,
At the rising of the sun.

In memory of The Revd Stuart Huyton, priest and pilgrim.
December 2012

ON MARKING OUT THE LINE

If God was up above and looking down
As I do now upon a land bereft,
The heavens would surely quake in sheer
Revolt, and rain their thunderbolts upon
The human minds that think so ill of others
That they count each heart and home as
Nectar for the unquenched thirsting of
Their guns: the western landscape far below
Sees Aleppo, Homms, Damascus, tortured
In the burning midday sun. While to the East,
Across the desert ridge, the charred remains,
And broken hearts of Mosul, Kirkuk, Baghdad.
Such is the mystery, of history the complicity, as I
Fly on, protected in a flimsy pencil tube
Of western economic arrogance – left to ponder
On the cause of war, and my colluding
Silence. If God were really up above, and looking on
Perhaps a cosmic rage at human arrogance and
Pride would end it all, and dark and cold would
Creep across this spangled space until its galaxies of
Tears spun into nothingness. Better then the
Holy One should choose to make nativity within
This shattered land, and call it home, and reach
With trembling tentacles of love across the ruins of
the cities, and the pain-charred hills, until the
dawning of another day, until the burgeoning
Labour-pains of spring.


High-flying the border between Syria and Iraq, at 37000’
June 2012

MARY COBWEB QUEEN

Visiting a parish in the Philippines, I find myself in the heart of the carving industry of the country, in a small village by a lake. The church is adorned with garish religious artefacts; the community hums as festival processions move up and down. But as I visit a woodcarver parishioner, amongst the half-finished or broken pieces on the shelf, I chance upon a deeper reality….



MARY COBWEB QUEEN

High on a dust-laden shelf
And covered in cobwebs,
Perilously leaning as if to ensure
The job below is cut to perfection,
Sits Mary, mother of shadows,
A not quite finished Queen of Heaven.

Here in Paete, Laguna,
Some hours to the south of Manila,
She dwells in a woodcarver’s basement,
Her home among the offcut shavings of
A carpenter’s shop, a familiar place:
Among the forgotten; where she belongs.

Quietly she watches as hand and eye
In perfect synergy with blade and wood
Now ply their craft, of long-learned
Generations: she the mother of the one
Whose destiny was shaped in wood;
She whose heart was broken by a tree.

Throughout the town the saints are
On parade: perspiring bands blast,
Children run behind the carnival,
While townsfolk shuffle to
The memories of aeon-chiselled truths
Now long assigned to tribal fantasy.

But Mary, shrouded in the dust of
Decades, bides her time, and as in
Years gone by, she stays at home.
Hers to weep at this abuse of icons;
Hers to ponder hope and desolation both,
Within her sacred, bleeding, wooden heart.


Paete, Laguna, Philippines,
March 2012

NO EASING RAIN

Among the reeds, birds flutter:
Open their defiance of the call
To midday rest; heat presses in
On every side; storm clouds gather
Bringing pressure on the sultry air
To bursting point. But nothing comes.

Droplets of rain, longed for over days
and months of anguished waiting
By parched and cracking earth,
Deny their gift, and like their wearied
Suppliants, prayer-denied, they wait
And wait some more.

Afar the jagged screeching of the
meadow-strimmers: they bow their
High-pitched tune, in vain awaiting
A bass-line rumble from the skies.
Beneath a tree, two young men sense
the scent of dusted rain, and wait.

So all is to hand: the stage is set,
The players in their places:
The lights are dimmed across the
Laden sky but only silence echoes back
the expectation of the storm;
till barren, it is gone: and so the curtain falls.


Awaiting the rains that never came
to a thirsty land,
Sidwashini,
Swaziland
February 2012

A THOUGHT IN TIME

Gentle the rhythmic pulsing of
The early morning clock.
Subtle the balance of the rocker
Arm, holding the memory of
What has been, and what is yet
To come: tense against the leaden
Weight of history, chain-pulled
To earth, it measures out regret
And possibility. An inward pull,
An outward letting go, a pulse,
A breath, an existential telling
Forth of what is yet to be.

And in the quiet persistent ticking,
A sudden bursting of the chime
Announces opportunity, a calling
To the day and to the task: here is a
Stretching forward and a reaching back,
Attentive now to others’ eyes and ears,
Who listening to the chimes, and bending
To another day, have measured time,
Have lived, and loved, and journeyed on.
This too shall we, with joyous even beat,
For gentle is the rhythmic pulsing
Of the early morning clock.



On sharing a quiet cup of tea
with the family Grandfather Clock,
6.30a.m., New Years Day 2012