Deep silence


There was a holy place made with the screens
Where lay the old man, trembling into dream.
His face was pale, his nose felt like white ice
An offering on the block for sacrifice.

The sacred place was marked by song and prayer
Made quietly so no-one else would hear.
He held my hand and whispered, please don’t go.
I held him in my heart, as his went slow.

A cocoon made in noisy A and E
A strange place for the Lady God to be.
Deep silence underneath the usual noise,
Pierced only by my child-like singing voice.

I saw his soul, my tears made stiff curtains
Hidden so, I felt the weight of pain.
I felt my heart crack, struck by loss and grief
Death had been there like a silent thief.

His pale face on the pillow seemed to smile
The kindness of strange angels did beguile

Secure

When you got a mortgage

Fancy little house

Furniture from Ercol

Dancing with your spouse

Don’t think love lasts for ever

Like life is all secure

Any moment baby

They’re knocking at your door.

First there are the Nazis

Then the Soviet gore

Don’t look for your house, love

Nothing is secure

Love is for the angels

What is living for?

Shelled

Goodbye,Mrs Perebyinis.

Goodbye your children

Crossing a broken stone bridge

Shelled by Russian soldiers

See your suitcase and dog

harness on the ground.

I hear your dog barking

I hear the planes circle

The moon shines indifferently

As it does on the man who ordered the attack

God is a moon

Who is the sun?

Where nobody knows

What’s going on

Who by fire?

Who by water?

It’s all said and done

Discovering Tillich

Katherine's avatarHow my heart speaks

Tillich 1You know this experience, sometimes when you are browsing in a bookshop you come across a book with a wonderful title. This happened to me as a  student when I saw a book with this title:

“The courage to be ”

by Paul Tillich

I was going through a hard time and just the title alone helped me as no one I knew had ever said it takes courage to live well.So I bought this book and dipped in. I found it interesting and thoughtful.Sometimes I would just look at the front cover and repeat the title.I had discovered mantra meditation.in a sense.

One morning I was listening to a radio programme about poetry in England and tidying up. Suddenly my old battered copy  of “The Courage to Be” fell out of a shelf and into my hand.And I said, thank you. Because I had lost this companion and now it’s restored…

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Puzzles

My tears were running where they never walked.

My voice was singing long before I talked

My heart was broken yet it was no plate.

I met my husband long before our date

I confessed my sins while in the womb.

I shall do the same when in the tomb

I confess to cruelty

I confess I killed a dandelion

If not so it weren’t for lack of trying.

I abused a buttercup last year

I filled it full of tea and not of tears

The daisy has complained I hurt her tongue.

I never knew she had one was I wrong?

N