URBAN PROPHETS

Two young boys throwing pebbles in the sand.
Cross-legged they sit, lost in concentration
As old men might with dominoes and ale – but
Different in the dreaming, not remembering.

The sand, in fact, makes do where tarmac once
Lay smooth before this “model” town was lost to
Urban deprivation and decay: a people’s spirits
Crushed between the war-lords, barons and police.

Intent these two, as if upon their skin-tight shoulders
Lies the future of the globe. Amid the fading sunshine
Of the afternoon, and gathering dusk, they make of sand
And stone, of laughter and of frowns, their other world.

To adult eyes the shabby street, for such it seems,
Descends through purpling twilight into fearful night.
Not so for these young friends – imagining tomorrow.
In vibrant play, in friendship and in unencumbered hope

They are the urban prophets –
They proclaim the building of the Cidade de Deus.




After observing a street scene in the Cidade de Deus – the City of God –
A notorious slum on the western edge of Rio de Janeiro
October 2011

SOME COSTLY TREASURE

Darkness slowly engulfs the square.
Night falls amidst a silent shift in
Who walks tall among the city’s streets
And alleyways: now from the shadows come
The forgotten ones, the old, the young,
The babes in arms – whose only home
Is here. For this is Rio, more than any
Other city, where poor and rich are
Neighbours close, but strangers. Such
Inequality of opportunity.

Across the square, ornate in neo-Gothic
Splendour, a mighty “holy” edifice awaits
A groom and bride: flowers in their beauty
And their thousands, adorn the steps and
Doors and aisle; black-suited ushers –
Bouncers for the night – stand by to open
Doors of limousines, but close the wrought-iron
Gates to any but the most chic wedding guests:
Here love is blind indeed. “To have and hold”
For ever in a false security.

Another scene, just yards away. Beneath the
Soft glow of the amber lamp illuminating some
Civic yester-worthy, a simple table holds a cup
And plate. Bread is broken, wine outpoured
Among the city’s poor to whom it best belongs.
And sat around arrayed in rags of beauty and
Of pain come children, women, men, by all
The world forgotten, save by God. So here the
Food of love, the wine of dignity restored is
Offered and received with joy. But then

While priestly hands are held aloft, and all
Is offered, even in this place, according to the
Canon, I spot a woman in the crowd bearing
Her gift: body lotion, cheap and pungent,
Passed from hand to hand – her offering to
Tend the aching flesh of dusty streets. Joyfully
It anoints first arms, then legs, then breasts -
And healing and Shalom are there, an
Alabaster box for all to share. And God, whose
Tears embrace the streets with love, now
Weeps with unambiguous delight.


On observing, and sharing in , a Street Mass
In down-town Rio de Janiero, October 2011

ADVENTURE'S RESTING PLACE

Through rolling hills and
Gentle watered meadowlands
We wend our way to church.
Quiet this serried place today,
This holy, often noisy space:
And quieted our hearts before
The empty space of death
Disguised in unobtrusive,
Lilied, wreaths of love.

What good is this, this slow
Determined dance of neuro-
Disconnection? A fertile mind,
A restless spirit and a
Generous heart imprisoned, yet let
Loose to dance another tempo,
Hum another tune, and ride
A wilder storm, while held in
Love and friendship’s firm embrace.

In Eucharist we give our thanks
And for a friend now gone
Make anamnesis: what courage
We recall, what mystery we explore in
Incensed air of loss and
Inner dereliction! And yet what hidden,
Subtle joy, what reckless hope
Awaits in bread and wine, and in
Pain’s broken circle re-connected?

On returning from the funeral
of Philip Wetherell, friend, priest,
pioneer and adventurer,
who wrestled for three years
with Motor Neurone Disease.
July 2010

STONES THAT CRY OUT

How hard is this implacable
And unforgiving land.

Only the howling of the desert
Wind, or the swirling of
The southward flowing
Syrian springs can possibly erode
The harshness of this place
And sculpt an ever-deepening
Rift upon the landscape –
And upon her peoples.

Rocks of the wilderness:
Building-blocks of Temple,
Fortress, Mosque and Church -
All sourced alike and quarried
From the hills that separate
A river from a sea.

Stones hurling anger
And abuse; slabs for walls, and
Aggregate for roads that
Only some may travel;
Outcrops, shade for wearied sheep
Or mirrored sheen

Reflecting back the searing sun
While burning all that dares to grow;
Subduing armies trudging through
The centuries, upon their weary march
For destiny, for Christ, for
Jahweh, Allah or for power.

And then this other rock at Abu Gosh.
Chiselled to a miller’s stone for
Making bread; for baking bread,
For fellowship, encounter (and at Emmaus
Too), for breaking of that bread, for
Kneading all the pain and loss,
To forge again a friendship and
A burning hope that redefines

How hard is this implacable
And unforgiving land.

A millstone lies beside the church at Abu Gosh, one of the traditional sites
Associated with the Emmaus Road encounter after Jesus’ resurrection.
Conclusion of a Pilgrimage – May 2010

JUSTICE - WALL TO WALL?

I could not measure how
This wall belies its history.
I have no yardstick to explain
Its tragic thrall, no
Plumbline to define its angled
Reach to heaven, or to hell.

For in these stones, these
Massive slabs of rock by
Herod hewn, there is a welcome
And a cruel rebuff, a symbol
Of a wounded people crying “home”,
Where access is again denied.

Here at this Wailing Wall
Devotion of the faithful is assured
In longing for a temple not a tent:
But on the wind the swallows
Glide, and catch another wailing,
A distant lamentation of another people -

And another wall.




At Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall,
On Pilgrimage among the Palestinian hills.

Night Watch

NIGHT WATCH

The breeze falls still and
Flapping, the foresail
Calls time, the wake
Dies back and oh so
Gently
In the undulating swell
With lengthening shadow
She rounds the headland
And eases into safety,
Into port

And the rock dove hangs
On the evening air
In open-wingèd welcome
Of the dying embers
Of the sun:
As tired men on bar-stools
Lift their glasses
In open-throated welcome
Of the golden tinted nectar
Of their gods.

Amidst the gathering gloom
Now homebound
Gulls track the fading
Ever-deepening blue, yet
Far, horizon:
And I am left at peace
To ponder my mortality:
A crystalline fleck
Upon a soft crustacean
Floor.


An evening reflection
Portocolom,
Mallorca
August 2009

Missing you

MISSING YOU

Pebbles crunching under foot.
Sullen grey and still the sea
Lapping in unusual February calm.
Muffle-wrapped against the cold
I walk alone, as laughing couples gaze
Into each other’s eyes and toss
Their bags of soggy Brighton chips aside.

The Palace Pier is open as it was
When all those fifty years ago and
More (or less) I ran and played or fished
In innocent abandon. Now in measured step
I pass across its ageing planks and listen to
Its one-armed bandits softly peddling
Lies of dreams to be fulfilled.

I reach the pier’s end and pause a while
In conversation with a noble gull
Who gives me just a moment of her time,
Then falls away, and glides across the
Waves in search of food: and I in search
Of you, am captivated by a pool of distant
Sunlight on this laden sea, and feel your warmth.


After Brighton beach
Valentine’s Eve, 2010

Beyond Grief

BEYOND GRIEF


Wails of sorrow echo around
the gathering night,
Air thick with choking dust and flies
Settling on coagulated blood while
Oozing through the aftershock
Of silence:
Life itself runs dry
Or drains away.

For this is Haiti on a Tuesday afternoon
When the deep earth fell
And broke her back:
Paralysis of all that makes the
World go round – and loss
Of life, and loveliness and hope.
“And where is God?”
The people plead in vain.

Yet stoned, and crushed and even
Crucified on broken beams, these people rise
Again defying pain and cracking thirst;
Sockets dry, hearts bereft.
How sadly simple can it get
When Simon says
A rock feels no pain, and
An island never cries?



In prayer for Haiti
January 2010

EYJAFJALLAJOKULL to you too!

EYJAFJALLAJOKULL to you too!

As if in orchestrated, measured
And yet quiet revenge,
A pall of ash is hurled
Into the stratosphere
And tumbles gently
Down from Iceland, closing
All the airports in the land.

As if a bunch of bankrupt
Bankers hatched a plot of
Purposed retribution, displacing
Fiscal meltdown by an underhand
(and one might say underground)
Agreement to engage in gaseous
(but quantitative) easing.

As if the arrogance of modern
Western humankind is
Finally brought down to earth;
As if on beaches, overcrowded
Bars and dim-lit lobbies of hotels
A people glimpse again their
Own fragility when nature farts;

As if God, too, goes on an Easter break,
Upsets the ordered turning of the earth
Cries “not at home today!” and
Chuckling, lays a film of
Heavenly household dust
Across the globe to say
In no uncertain terms “It is enough!”

After the prolonged shutdown of European
Airspace in April 2010