Christmas Story - The Shepherds

The night routine, protecting dozing sheep.

The normal fire to ward off fear and chill.

The boredom tensioned, stretched to hear in still-

-ness some small sound of stealth, one come to creep

And snatch.  Then:  Terror-wonder!  Lights that leap

From sky to ground; and earth and heaven fill

With word so strange as to confuse and thrill:

In aftermath-obedience hurry, seek.

The child just born lies softly in the straw

Wrapped cosily with just his face to see.

The mother and the father watch in awe

Like all new parents, yet somehow still more

Aware of glory.  We observe the scene –

A life-long imprint – ponder and explore.

2007

poems of the Christmas story - Joseph

The august one decrees and we must act.

Our hearts, our thoughts, our guarded whispers rail

Against injustice; impotent we quail

Before the powers, and I cannot protect

My loved one or the One she bears.  In fact

We leave our income, walk the weary trail

In fear of thieves or worse.  Though slow and frail

We come at last: begrimed, backs bent, soles cracked.

No room!  Yet no-one understands the shame.

Then kindness makes an urgent quiet space

Where he is born to grace our humble frame.

Amazed I realise: Bad oppression's game

Has brought us timely to the promised place.

He knows.  He's here.  There need be no acclaim.

poems of the Christmas story - Mary

The room became pulsating power and light

Quite frankly I was terrified of him:

This presence, fearsome-gentle, joyful-grim.

So strange his words of comfort and of fright

Which plunged me lonely into disgraceful plight.

He'd gone!  I breathed.  And yet my world was dim;

Fear hollowed me, but joy welled up to brim

And spill into the arid faith of night.

Submission is not over once agreed;

Rather repeated as I choose to tell

Accusing, loving eyes that search me, plead

To comprehend; as I am torn  by need

And fullness, faith and doubt:  Can all be well?

Is there within me God's own saving seed?

2007

cloud ...

The puffs of cloud-fluff scurry across the blue
Trying to catch up with the cumulus ahead.
That mass of white, moving so slightly, is due
To gather all; till, nimbus, it will shed
Its load of precious water, earthward spread
The gentle coolness of its mist, and strew
Its quenching drops on thirsty dust. Now dead,
The withered plants will blossom green and new.

And so of gathered water vapour bled,
The very substance of itself poured through,
Sacrificed
Keeps the tryst
To give itself completely and be true
To what it means to be a cloud …

Super-Saturated

Stumbling picture of the brain
Sending messages quite plain
Or else obscure, uncharted meaning
Locked within, enchanted, teaming
With envisioned life. The dreaming
Seething centre laughing, creening,
Reaching for its lost refrain
In the recess of the brain.

A thousand stories yet untold
A million images unfold
Uncounted harmonies unsung
Unnumbered patterns still not sprung
Awake impossible to sustain
Exploding in the sleeping brain.

I am here

I am. I’m here. I am alive.
Let me not neglect rejoicement in this fact.

When all is battle, life in me will strive
To overcome. This life defends the tract
Of universe that’s me, and I survive.
The turmoil passes and this life refracts
The light into the dark till I revive.
Joy comes: unexpected, inexact;
The life in me will thrill to it and thrive.
Therefore I will not neglect this pact:

I am, am here, and am alive,
And I will not neglect rejoicement in this fact.

Spring (in Cape Town!)

Spring

Twigs are scattered across the sky;

Leaves have budded and burst

To wave a delicate lace, defy

The winter winds that thirst

For leaves dispersed.


Flowers are sparkling across the ground;

Colours have blossomed despite

The winter chill’s disgust, astound

The eye and give delight

To insect flight.