Ascent

 

My son descends – I cannot – measureless –

the time between – a blossoming – a mirror –

day and night – a youth revisited –

identity – a shadow – see – a ladder –

God enthroned – the angels – rising – falling –

stone – a pillow – generations – light –

a finch – at dawn – ascending as it calls –

a dream – what is within a world – a kite –

the heavenly – a thread – the closeness of

eternity – a silent stone – an altar –

dusty signature – unseen – beloved –

Isaac – in his father – heaven saw –

but Jacob feared – set up the stone – poured oil –

within descent – ascent – a seed in soil.

 

 

Visitation

 

A visitation – suddenly – another

world – a flash – often we sense its slow

approach – the heavy sky – an awe – uncovered –

God – whose holiness is as the snow –

a purity – that blinds – a metaphor –

a path – jagged and powerful – a point –

earth and the sky as one – no creditor –

the air – the clouds – a generosity –

a body full of light – a miracle –

the roots descend – unseen – a gravity –

a tent of God and man – a pinnacle –

a lightning strike – an eye’s opacity –

a flash – a whiteness dark as night – we see –

unseeing – unseeing we see – in blindness – light.

 

 

Dust to Dust

 

Dust to dust – eternity – the sky –

earth to earth – what is becomes what was –

the breath returns – the spirit soars – the I

becomes another I – in death a cross –

in hopelessness a power. A sun descends –

tomorrow – dawn. A sweetness in our sorrow.

Ashes to ashes – we – a body bends –

a womb – the ground. Instinctively – a horror.

Within – outlasting us – our bones. The stars –

beyond the sun. The people watching feel

another power. Christ has risen – hour

by hour eternity – the resurrection mends.

Intuitively the birds all sense the dawn –

sweetness – long before the light is born.

 

 

Cathedrals

 

Above – the light – I turn – beyond the trees –

a hill – our lands by others intersected –

shadows form – I watch – a sanctity –

a caterpillar makes its way – the deck

reflects the autumn sky – one year –

to live beside the bush – a hermitage –

illumed clouds – the wind – what was – brought near –

a solitude – beside the sea – a ridge –

the stony structures – cathedrals to the sky –

perhaps our fathers worshipped there – one cloud –

in blue – I sensed the immanence – to die –

another form – beneath the breeze – the birds –

a thousand generations – love – before –

a hill – a life – a beckoning – a call.

 

 

Antiphon

 

I look towards the east – I see the distant

hills – sunlit – beautiful beneath

the sky. One year – our home – resilient –

our rising and our setting – roses – wreathes –

commemorating life – two compass points –

my parent’s home looks to the west – at dawn –

the distant skyscrapers – the sun anoints –

by day – expansiveness – an antiphon –

the rising and the setting light – a child

and youth – a man in middle age – a mirror –

one appears within the other – exile –

loneliness – a star that twinkles – brighter –

travellers note – eternity within –

an immanence – that teaches us to sing.

 

 

In Terra Pax

 

Heartbroken – listening to Mahler’s sixth –

the slow movement – a young man – nineteen years –

the progress of the melodies – transfixed –

my tears – a prison cell – the world – a sphere –

totality – it moved – a waterfall –

a childhood – past – today – eternity –

in terra pax – by solitude – enthralled –

a chord’s static immobility – in freedom

falls – yet holds its immobility –

I watch the stars – their silence – grief departs –

the sun descended long ago – foreseen –

what is – in darkness life – tonight – no art –

a tenderness – a heart that breaks – created –

in loneliness – the timeless – contemplated.

 

 

Revival

 

I hear – but do not understand. I heard

before dawn – a sound so marvellous –

a jewel – seen before the light – a bird –

a radiance – a star – impermanence –

the sun appeared – a herald – trumpets blast –

charisma – silently the king in state

ascends the throne – ten steps – profound – the last

is first – why sing – the stars are all ablated –

future – light of moon – equivalent

to sunlight – sunlight sevenfold – dreaming –

prayed – uncertain certainty – trivalent

like stars – they are – are not – existing – seen

and unseen – undefined. A day unique –

known to the LORD. Our knowledge is oblique.

 

 

Clouds

 

The permanence of clouds – remembrance –

for what is past continues in the mind –

this afternoon I looked – a ghostly presence –

solid in the sky – a grace – defined

by its impermanence – I watched – expecting

it to move – it stayed – the wind was blowing

parallel to me – uncircumspect –

it gradually withdraws – the house below

impervious – the spiritual immune –

their passage through the air comparable

to schools of fish – a tapestry – attune –

an allegory – humanity – unable

to distinguish the invisible –

discontinuous – unbridgeable.