HAMBA KAHLE, TAT'MKHULU

Deep rumbling thunder echoes round

The southern Malagasi hills as ancient

And primordial earth calls back Madiba 

For its own. Rains of blessing tumble 

Down in thankfulness for such a life: 

What hammer on a broken rock or surging 

Wave upon a prison shore could break a spirit 

So imbued with human dignity and hope?

Then overwhelming storm erupts

And hurls to earth its terror-laden bolts

That split and crackle unpredictable

Against a blackened sky: as did

The racist terror of a state gone mad

In search of unattainable security.

So did a people rise in stark revolt

And rising, with Madiba, paid their price.

Now nature's synergy of opposites

Conspires to breathe a cataclysmic

Shuddered breath, to open

Cosmic gates of love, and welcome 

Home this champion of a better way,

A way that will not offer hate for hate,

But rather bears the pain, and through it

Finds humanity's redemption path.

On hearing the news of Mandela's death,

In Madagascar, December 2013

All Saints Tide

A soft votive lamp
With flickering flame awaits
The breaking of bread

History murmurs
Whispered memories of saints
Robed in plaintive chant

Hints of costly love
Heavy hang on incensed air
As a low bell tolls

All Saints Woodham
November 2013

Pray for Kenya and Pakistan

Following the brutal violence in Nairobi and in Peshawar last weekend...



God of our tears and desolation,
You know in your own broken body
The savage pain of senseless violence.
In your dying and rising love
We hold before you the peoples
Of Kenya and of Pakistan:
Embrace them with your comfort,
Encourage them with hope;
And strengthen us to walk with them
The painful, costly road to peace.



28th September 2013

A Prayer for Syria, and more

God of all love and compassion,
We hold before you the holy and historic lands
Of the Middle East, where continents,
Cultures, faiths and peoples meet
With trepidation and with hope.
Grant to those who suffer, comfort and courage
To all who lead, wisdom and restraint,
And to us all a passion to work
For that deeper peace and justice
That is your eternal longing
For your whole Creation.
Amen

OF TIDES AND TIMES

Deep stillness as the morning tide recedes:
Gently rippled water silently gives way
To furrowed sand and shallow pool.
Small boats, denied their raison d'être,
Surrender to the dying of the sea
And take their rest, now flotsam
On the shore: conspirators with nature,
They bide their time, still-beached as crocodiles.
And time there is, around the clock face
Of this fragile isle where wind and sun
In turn mark out the fleeting moments
Of our passing stay, inviting us to
Deeply breathe the ocean's oxygen.
Such azure restoration of the soul
Brings from the Deep, deep peace.


Rodrigues Island,
Indian Ocean
August 2013

A Prayer for Nelson Mandela

God of our dreams and our destinies,
You call out leaders for your people,
Equal to the hour:
As Madiba shouldered the burdens of a nation
On the long and painful road to freedom,
So now may you walk with him as he journeys
To a deeper freedom, and to that lasting peace
You long for all your peoples.

ROCKS AND ROLLS

Rocks of ages gone, once singularly
Crushed by sweat and anguished
Sparse-rewarded toil, lie now in endless
Rows that pave the way once just
A muddied track: across the dyke,
Above the fields of inundated rice there
Moves a rag-tag band of old and young,
Of cattle, ducks and geese, and
Carts piled high with market fare;
And quatre-a-quatres*, of course,
Cocooning Tana's** wealthier elite,
While whisking them to town oblivious of the
Scents and stench of urban village life.
So when these cobbled rocks reflect,
they offer back not heat alone, nor noise
Nor rough-edged passage - nothing more -
but rather find their deep ancestral voice
That cries "It is enough! For justice
Now let Madagascar strive!"

Antananarivo
Madagascar,
April 2013

*The colloquial phrase for a 4x4 vehicle,
the equivalent of a “Chelsea Tractor”
** The local name for Antananarivo