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

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

WHEN YOU'RE WEARY ...

A road far travelled is a
Road never travelled enough:
Beyond the horizon
Where the dust of the track
Colours the fading embers
Of the sinking blood-red sun,
And a lonely heron lazily
Beats her path to home;
There in the dying moments
of the day the urge for rest
Mingles with the irrepressible
Anticipation of tomorrow -
Adventure meets exhaustion
And the deep-hued heart of
Africa beckons through
The pulsing of cicadas and
The star-spattered hours of
Darkness to herald the joyful
Coming of the dawn
And of another day....


Africa under my skin
September 2011

CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Such stories to the lizard
Must belong! Clandestine,
Waiting, hidden in her ancient
Cleft between the deep-hewn
Rock of ancient empire, and
Byzantine church. Tales, not
Tails, of power, whispers of
Passion and murmurings
Of fear – she hears them all.

And as the town is sacked and
Then abandoned, she claims
Her space again, and later welcomes
Pirates to her parlour, booty
And bounty both illicit stored.

Come soldiers, bishops, priests
And fisherfolk across the years.
Our lizard stays her course through
Changing DNA, and still is here
To welcome tourists in the heat:
Most to ignore, but some to step
Aside and wonder at her welcome:
Side’s watchful ancient, armoured,
Gentle, scaly confidante.


A quiet moment in a shaded ruin
-not quite alone!
Turkey, September 2011

WHO’S HOME, WHO’S HISTORY?

Wavelets lapping on fallen
Corinthian columns tell
Of empires lost, of flaunted
Pride brought low: for here
Stood ancient Side (See-Day) port
And Roman bastion, high-walled
Against a deeper, hidden fear.

But of this fallen column,
What is known? Glistening in
The umbral early evening
Light, what secrets does it
Long to tell? Of him who,
Slave-lashed, hewed it from
Its distant marble home?
Of them who dragged it, mile
On mile, with many falling by
The way, with only sun-baked dust
To honour as their epitaph?

Of them, to praise some secretly
Derided Caesar, who carved it
To an elegance where beauty
Got the better of defiance? Or indeed of
Those who hauled it then aloft, a column
Stately in its honour of Apollon,
God of the higher arts, and of the Sun?

But later, then, the anger
Burns and boils: insurrection,
The scuttling of the fleet,
The sacking of the city and
Its holy, self-aggrandising
Pantheon: the answer to the
Hubris of the gods.

So how do I remember,
How re-learn, the history
Of the classics? For this is Asia
Minor, home of the dead -
Of empires come and gone;
Strange home too, and
Stranger grand-parental rooting,
To one of countless fallen soldiers
Wasted on Gallipoli’s barren,
Blackened, shrapnel-tortured earth.

Home of another kind, to the living
Daughters and sons of Ataturk, a
Nation caught between her neighbours –
Greece, Syria, Iraq, Iran (and troubled
Kurdistan): her peoples holding faith and
Ambiguity beneath the azure beauty of
This sky and sea – as I with them add
One more tear of loss, and hope
Amidst this middle-earthen
Cradle of the world.

On holiday in Side,
Anatolyan Pamphilia,
Turkey:
September 2011

A PILGRIMAGE, LONG OVERDUE

To stand in someone else’s shoes
Is not a possibility: for in this place
They wore no shoes.

To see what others saw, to miss
What others missed is also more than
Can be easily done:

For safety and the knowledge of prosperity,
Not fear and brutal separation
Become the cataracts to truth.

Across the teeming bay the utter
Beauty of the Mountain Table-spread
As nature’s sumptuous banquet-hall,

While on the Island, from the
Kitchens come, of Pap six ounces if
You’re coloured, four if black.

So now where brutal power once
Sought to crush the human spirit,
She, in her good time, rose up and

Quarried out of wickedness
A burning hope, and from a stone-built
Prison, a nation standing free.




After visiting Robben Island
Off Cape Town, South Africa,
May 2011

(Pap is one of the words used to describe
the staple, Maize Porridge)