tRuth

Lament

I peel the onion
-did she like onions?-
greenish-white, translucent, familiar.
I slice layer after layer,
packed tight like cause and consequence,
like bolts in a bomb.
What possibilities were packed in her,
what hopes, what understanding
of her place in life?
Such a small place.
Who can know
what dreams she might have lived into reality
-did she finish her library book?-
The relentless round of meals rolls on
without her: little Saffie’s dead.

tRuth 2017

This poem is in memory of Saffie Rose Roussos, aged 8, the youngest victim of the Manchester Arena bombing of 22nd May 2017. But it could stand for so many others killed by violence, all over the world.

Psalm 33 paraphrase

Lay your loving-kindness on our souls, Lord,
like a healing leaf, our hope of wholeness.

Rejoice and praise God, my friends,
this is what we were made for.

sing with the strings, dance with the drums,
a new song, rejoicing, singing.

God made us, marvel and sing, and the stars’ multitude,
the wild waters, marvellous he made them.

God’s eye is over us in wisdom
watching, attentive. over the peoples.

Attend to God, my friends,
this is what we were made for.

Align your life with God and you are right,
all is well, it falls into place.

God guides your life in wisdom if you wait:
we wait on God and trust the holy name.

God is shield and strength and wisdom,
God’s guidance is for ever. Alleluia.

Lay your loving-kindness on our souls, Lord,
like a healing leaf, our hope of wholeness.

tRuth 2013

Begin in closeup

Begin in closeup:
A base of polished oakwood, smooth and shining,
Dovetailed joints as tight as when they were first made
With a sharp chisel in a workshop
Redolent of shavings and shellac,
Long ago.
Shining brass pans and chains, butter-yellow,
Speaking of long and careful use,
The love of a craftsman for the tools
Daily familiar and warmed by his hand.
And a pointer, delicate, needle-thin,
Trembling at a breath.
These are goldsmiths’ scales for measuring
The very precious, the very small.
Next, let your gaze pull back to see the whole:
A precision instrument made with love for one purpose.
These scales are like a soul in this:
Made to know the joy of being a creature,
Something made to do one thing superbly well:
To hold, respond, to speak truth,
Fitted to the Maker’s hand.
A thing that by doing its work
-carrying, reflecting, pointing –
Becomes what it is.
But a soul is unlike the scales in this:
The soul grows through carrying, reflecting, pointing;
It changes, warmed by his hand.
A soul lives more deeply and puts out new green
Tendrils, leaves, blossoms.
It is shaped by what it carries
-choosing, affirming, rejecting-
Until it points only to its Creator,
The tremulous needle stilled due Christ.

tRuth 2015

image CC0 MaxPixel

Emmaus

They left in haste; the loaf still stands
Innocent, calm among the cups
– As a hurled stone might on the sands
Whose passing churned the waters up –
Because the stranger, as he supped
Had blessed it with his broken hands.

tRuth 92

I wrote this years and years ago, but I still like it: the one strong image of a stone sploshing into deep water, making a splash in more ways than one.

Psalm 62 paraphrase

My soul waits in silence on God,
The source of my salvation.
God alone is my rock, I shall never be shaken.
In stillness my soul waits for him and in trust,
Truly my hope is in him.
In God I am safe and honoured,
He is my strong rock and my refuge.
In silence my soul waits for his coming,
A waiting that draws down grace like the dew of the morning.
Put your trust in him, my people,
Do not fear to pour out your heart to him.
God is our refuge and he says,
Once and again he says that the power is his alone.

tRuth 2013

Psalm 22 paraphrase

This is the psalm quoted by Jesus as he died on the cross.

My God, where are you?
Why have you abandoned me?

Day and night I cry out,
but you are silent.

Still, you are the Holy One,
enthroned upon the praises of Israel.

Our forebears trusted in you and were saved in their distress,
but today they laugh at me for trusting in you.

I am a worm, hardly human,
everyone spits and laughs me to scorn.

Do not leave me in the lurch,
you who have kept me safely from the day I was born.

Save me from those who jostle me, who are closing in,
like a pack of wild dogs hunting me down.

I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint,
my heart in my breast is like melting wax.

I am reduced to skin and bone, stripped of everything,
they have shared out my coat and my shirt between them.

Save me, O Lord, come back and help me,
save my poor little life from the lion’s mouth.

Yes! You have answered me! Praise the Lord!
I will tell everyone and praise your name.

God does not ignore the poor and suffering ones,
he listens to those who cry to him.

All the world shall turn to God
in worship and praise together.

I will praise him for saving me, and so will my children,
their descendants for ever will praise the Lord.

tRuth 2018

Easter evening

The choirs have gone home, and in the grey spring
Dusk the church grows still. The coals
That glowed red in the thurible are dimming
While belated incense falls in veils
Like mist in quiet fields at evening.

The resurrection songs have sounded bright
And joyful in the morning, but the pale
Hospice patient will not last the night.
Death still reigns this side of the veil
And bitter loss like icy rain, like blight.

But the outrage that we feel at death is pointing
To the fact that love outlasts the body’s death.
Reality wears veils, and hiding, hinting
Shows truth too big to grasp, like breath
Of incense clouds evoking light that’s glinting

Just out of sight, where other songs resound
Beyond the veil, a place that yet is strange.
When at twilight our turn comes around
To part the mists, though everything is changed,
Familiar voices welcome us as found.

tRuth 2018

image copyright tRuth http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Good Friday

I write my letter to you on a plank of wood
With three sharp pens, whose iron nibs
Scribe in the red ink of my seeping blood.

I play my music to you on my hollow ribs,
My ringing bones, my drumming heart that could
Beat out all time if it had not been broken.

I sing my love song to you with my dying breath,
I the one Word by whom the world was spoken.
What came to be through me I now make good,

Repair all wrongs, and bring you through my death
Into my timeless present, for I love you.
Take life from me, who took my life, and should
Your anxious heart still need some other token,
Look up: my love is deeper than the sky above you.

tRuth 2018

image copyright tRuth http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/