giant, gentle tree

lets go its leaves; soft blanket 

warming resting earth

The gentle space-maker

I emptied myself

   to give you space to grow. 

Empty yourself

   of all that is not you

   of all you worry 

      should be there

      to win esteem, 

      earn love, be seen. 

Empty yourself

   till all that’s left 

   is you, true you, of you. 

And from the rich dark mulch

   of long-forgotten dreams,

   of grief and hope,

   of fears and failures, tears,

   and lost delights,

the passions of your soul

   that cares have crusted over,

I will help bloom and blossom 

   something beautiful and brave

   that is true you, 

   the you in whom is found

   my joy and my delight.

Deconstruction

i

The world is mostly safe and kind –

Clean your teeth, work hard, be good,

Polite, on time, and you will find

That life rewards you as it should. 

Don’t fear the ones who break the law –

They’re far from here, locked up in jails.

Be good, be kind and we’ll make sure

That monsters stay in fairy tales. 

Then

       suddenly 

    everything changed. 

Parents’ faces lined with doubt;

    anxious warnings:

Come straight home. 

Stay away from the woods. 

Don’t talk to strangers. 

Why?

    What had stolen 

         the joy from simple life?

In time the panic faded. 

Life returned

   only a little less

       carefree,

       safe. 

Years later we learned 

   of children taken,

      horror upon horror. 

Of Brady, full of lies,

   of Hindley staring cold ahead,

and understood a little of

   our parents’ fears. 

ii

The Christian group was fun. 

Prizes given for various games;

a leather-clad Bible my reward

for memorising 66 strange names. 

The leader, with his sleek 2-seater car,

conkers in woods nearby,

girls in the group that caught

my adolescent eye. 

The stories were great:

the broken roof,

the children blessed,

the punning fun

of publicans and paralytics. 

For months we went,

my brother and I,

until the stories grew darker,

and I quaked and sobbed at night

afraid that I was bound for hell. 

My mother wisely 

banned us from the group.

Mark 4:21-29

There are secrets that protect, held in trust

and ones that destroy, like moth and rust.

They starve the other of love and light,

hoarded in envy, an unseen blight. 

The hidden lamp can guide no-one,

the truth unshared enlightens none. 

Unharvested fruit will rot and fall:

gifts ungiven are no gifts at all. 

The miser’s heart’s an empty store;

the unselfish giver is given more. 

The God we think we know

The God we think we know

dances in the vastness of each cell,

plucks the strings 

that thrum and purr our being. 

Come. Dance and sing. 

Ripples in the water,

drops within the ocean

unfathomable,

we turn with the tide

of fierce, unyielding love –

a mother’s dauntless love –

an artist’s driven passion.

Come. Dive and swim and bask.

The parable of the seeds

Sometimes we flit about like birds –

a fretful, fluttering existence –

snatching at seeds, then darting off –

distraction driving off persistence. 

Or else – epitome of pure persistence –

so seeming sure – solid – a rock –

bulwark against change, desire –

foundation stone or stumbling block?

Or else – thrill-seeker, addict, strutting

the labyrinthine, thorny track –

eyes seduced by every gleam –

more, more, more – what do I lack?

Seeds of grace – scattered wide –

dead for days in dark rich loam –

mercy within mercy within mercy –

green shoots, deep roots in human home. 

Golgotha

The Cross will be my place of beauty.

You relish its ragged, ruthless horror,

revel in its hideous cruelty.

You think to crush me with its awful weight.

No! I won’t allow it. I will break

your vicious power with my submission.

I choose to make this Cross my own

by shunning anger, outrage, bitterness,

and offering instead my free forgiveness.

Even you, I will forgive, and promise paradise

to all who glimpse the truth amidst the thorns,

who catch the strains of love among the cries.

I’ll wrap my mother and my friend within

a seamless woven robe of love and care.

I look, and I find beauty even here:

beauty in the hacked and splintering wood,

the dead set nails and spiteful thorns,

and my life’s blood poured out to feed the earth.

And you will see your bullying brutality

somehow flickering, faltering, failing.

I choose beauty.

Need

Even the Son of God needs help. 

The crowds press in, and he withdraws 

to a boat, to a mountain, to silence

if it can be found. 

The crowds in need (and who does not

need something?) press on, desperate

to draw from this apparently 

bottomless well of hope. 

The Son of Man needs friends to help 

procure a boat, to preach and heal,

and help him rest, but most of all 

to stand with him. 

Mad, bad or Son of God

Cf Mark 3:20-35

The man and his followers entered a house,

but before they could even feed or rest

a jostling crowd began to form,

like storm clouds gathering from the west;

a hungry crowd, starved of truth,

eager, clamouring to be fed. 

His mother and brothers were told of this:

‘He’s out of his mind,’ they said. 

The teachers from the City came

to spy on the irksome one who stood

in the midst of the gathering storm –

they would burn him if they could. 

‘Wherever he goes, chaos follows –

mobs, and Sabbath laws denied –

when demons rave he speaks to them:

he’s demon-possessed,’ they cried. 

From the eye of the storm the Son of Woman

spoke. ‘If none speak truth to power,

then power corrupts and demons thrive. 

I cast them out. This is my hour. 

My mind’s my own, my will is God’s, and those

who cede their will to God I here acclaim

as mine, as my true sister, brother, mother,

belovèd, treasured, living in my name. 

The death of John the Baptist

Even from prison, John,

your fierce spirit outfaces Herod. 

Irked, but intrigued, 

he hears the words which vex,

unwelcome guests which lodge

in his unquiet mind. 

Even in death, John,

at his garish party,

from a gory platter,

you outface him again,

disrupt the squalid schemes

of the bitter wife,

the naive dancing girl. 

And still you are not done. 

The Greater One

whose path you heralded,

takes your fierce call

and makes it more,

and Herod, hearing, fears

that you’ve returned 

to plague him once again. 

We hear your words, John,

urgent, clear and stark. 

You faced our treacherous world

and said, ‘Enough.

Turn round. Dare to dissent.’

When we are tempted by

the broader path,

to dally in deceit and compromise,

you stand unmoved and call us back

to make our desert pilgrimage. 

Baptisms

Prepare his path, John, smooth his way:

tell them to turn and face the future,

the pilgrim path that leads to him. 

Tell them of the Spirit, John:

the Spirit of love and fire,

the Spirit of trial and testing. 

He comes to be baptised with water,

but when he rises from the river,

the Dove baptises him with God’s great Yes. 

Yes to the One, the beloved Son,

Yes to the path that will lead him on

to a final baptism: betrayal and death. 

But first the Spirit of love and fire

dunks him in the desert’s dusty heat,

a trial by combat with a testing foe. 

The refining fire does its work;

he rises, ready to tread the path,

and help his followers smooth the way. 

And when he rises from the Easter tomb

he pours his Spirit on the earth, 

immersing us in healing fire and love.

Remains

i

What remains?

What remains when 

mortal remains 

are dust?

Born of stardust,

to dust we come,

but what remains?

What glint of gold remains

in memories and dreams

of those whose paths we crossed,

who will themselves in time return

to dust of the earth?

ii

Ancestors 

of blood or tribe

bolster wisdom,

foster grace.  

Unfelt touches

nudge us on;

unheard whispers

give us pause;

unseen gazes

suffuse love. 

Ripples spread 

in streams of life.

iii

What is held

in heaven’s hand,

sustained in being,

small as a hazelnut,

bright as a star?

What remains

in God’s embrace,

when oceans rise

and empires fall,

and stars themselves

return to dust?

What treasure stored 

in human flesh

is cherished, rescued, 

safeguarded

in God’s eternity?

Unending love,

undying light,

immortal fire. 

Sing in the face of death

Where (do you think)

  is my mother’s spirit?’

  she asks,

herself a mother now, 

  a dozen years past childhood, yet

  still her mother’s child. 

The jolt of loss

  tugs her back

  to half-forgotten streets

to playgrounds, sweet shops

  songs and meals

  her mother’s arms. 

The voice no longer there

  which all her life has marked

  her going out and coming in

has lullabied and soothed

  and chided, challenged,

  blessed and reassured. 

‘Where,’ she asks,

  ‘is her spirit? Is she still

  with me?’

How to explain?

How to be the voice

  that guides her in her tears

  to see the flecks and speckles that remain,

the love splashed on her life

  in myriad ways, in which

  the bone and marrow of her soul is steeped?

She will find strength,

  after the tears have cleansed

  her grief-clogged pores

to sing in the face of death,

  and as her song

  of firm enduring love

colours the desert sands

  with budding hope,

  an echo drifts across the dunes

the absent voice 

  in harmony with hers

  breathes from wells of love

whispers that not one whit

  of spirit or of love 

  is lost

sacred space

space to stroll or sit

a sea of grass, punctuated 

by sturdy, steady trees proclaiming life

the great Cathedral

rocksteady a millennium 

quietly proclaiming God

claiming a space for God

the tea room

a bounded space

the railings marking out a courtyard

but gapped, open to welcome guests

in sacred hospitality

where spirit meets with spirit within Spirit 

cosmic Space stretches far above

the imagined sky blue dome which veils

its boundless, unimaginable reach

diffracted light of day

rendering stars invisible 

yet Space is not more sacred than

the gaps between the daisy’s petals or

the thrumming, potent quantum space 

that holds in place the skeleton and tissue

of the questing wasp

God is not of the gaps

but of the sacred spaces that connect

Delight

Delight

when I am broken, overwraught with shame

a tearful child, alone in angry pain,

you lift me up, and gently speak my name,

and gaze at me, and smile and say

that I’m your funny valentine,

that I am your delight,

that you need me and that I have been loved,

that you have been,

and always will be my friend;

that you made me, 

and love me,

and will me to exist,

that at my soul’s centre you, Lord,

choose to dwell,

that you brought me into your banqueting house,

and your banner over me is ‘Love’,

and when I sleep you watch me breathe,

and stand and gaze and love me,

and that you sorrow over my hurts,

and when I stray

you long to bring me home,

and bid me welcome, 

and shoo away my doubts,

until I sit and eat

and rest in you.