Was ever thus,
when the pilgrim came from
the sea,
fearing the return.
—-
They stayed in a
still small island
listening for the
thin place and
—
finding only birds
and the rolling waves,
filling the air
with music,
when they looked for
—
God. In the waiting
they smile at flowers
nodding in the bee breezes
and glower at the dark clouded horizon.
——
Slowly time slipped by and the shore
filled and emptied to a rhythm
set by the Spirit,
and the pilgrim
picks driftwood
as a memory.
Twas evening, when the fishermen sail,
the sun shifting to shine on other seas,
Faintly glowing the far off stars
herald the approaching night.
——
the light slowly recedes from the shore,
as somewhere a wise owl calls from
a wooded glade, where rested roosting
birds ready to wake the dawn.
——–
The silken skin of the placid sea
moves in time to a hidden melody
while slowly a sliver of gold rises
silvering the darkling sky.
———–
Nearby human quieten, homes darken
and the moon bright sea shimmers.
and within the ripples dancing is
blue phosphorus blooming.
——–
A sole person communes from the shore,
lost in Neptune’s glorious palette,
he meditates on the swell’s rise
and fall, the salt in his tears.
——–
and the sea watching the lone figure,
hears his eternal heart’s brokenness,
and in its wisdom contemplates the
mystery of human mortality.
The For Sale sign hung expectantly for weeks,
til the joyful hurrying agent slapped ‘Sold’ on
and had ages of paperwork work through while
a loving couple who lived there were truly gone.
—-
It was their cosy home and garden, built in peace
around their chattering children now moved on,
loving hands that cleaned and weeded, partied
and carefully fashioned a flower bestrewed oasis.
—-
Now their spirits have left and its place will
know them more. Caring neighbours teared up,
and far off family felt the pain of new loss;
as their growing up place will become another’s –
—–
and so our lifecycle goes around over the lands
for rich and poor alike. But grace reveals that we
feel the bitter change, are sorry for it and grieve
the loss of friends who shared in our community.
——
He hides face in his arms as they grabbed him,
twisting, hurting his already rope burned skin,
innocently he had travelled to aged Afghanistan,
guilty by colour and creed he was violently taken,
not arrested, nor accused like hundreds of others.
——
Guantanamo Bay, a cruel place of tried and tested
torture criminalising good men,
treating them with contempt
and evil won the day.
——
Lives broken, loving men lost to their families
forced to live now in isolation,
their punishment continues,
plagued by secrecy and doubt.
——
Evil’s at its best when rabid racism enters
the eyes of the kind hearted,
and fearfully trains hearts to a fear
based on the thought police.
——-
Men who would be our friends have been lost,
peaceable lives tragically torn,
and now will justice come? Or,
like the dew or go early away?
The steps of ancients have walked this way,
searching out for easement of earthly sorrows,
seeking souls to bring to an earthy paradise
or expiating their sins with hunger and sorrow,
opening a way for newer treads of modern soles
to journey through the patient places of Gower.
——
Weary living brings the purposeful pilgrim,
eyes tired of seeing a tense troubled world,
intent on travelling in the holy, loving heart
of a being who reaches through thin places,
where angels hover to assist the seekers and
wounded hands long to hold their burdens.
——
The trail winds though the coastal paths,
down lanes, passing lichen covered trees,
toiling farmers’ friendly waves, tumbling
water alongside frantically buzzing bees
searching the wayside sweet flowers,
and villages of folk, tend loved gardens.
——-
Each step brings new things, a wren calls
and overhead a buzzard hungrily stares.
Waterproofs are stowed against the moods
of the wide sky crafting its treasures hourly;
where the sojourner on the sacred way,
soul rumbling, is hungry for a holy touch.
——
And so, the pilgrimage takes our hands,
feeding us with grace in the incompleteness
of existence and fuelling us for an unsteady
future; and invites us to take kindly comfort
to sustain our strength, hearten our prayers
and be broken bread to all our neighbours.
Generations crippled and controlled,
controversially, cruel governments
count the dead and silence the poor;
while the elite count their moneys
and parade themselves fortuitously
in roles designating fearful fascism.
Comprehensibly overtaking press and
media manipulating and monitoring
until the oppressed seek redress.
——
Painfully the demonstrating populace,
face the potential ruinous choice of
punishment,
to uphold hope in a vote,
to definitely restore a determined
democracy, replacing the right wing
ruling by a good people; prevailing
and working for the common good.