Delville Wood

Bluebells on the parapet
Originally uploaded by goforchris

Delville Wood on the Somme was the site of a terrible battle in WW1. One tree remains from that period; the rest of the wood has grown since the carnage. It is a powerful and beautiful place.

The trees are still. The morning light
flickers through unfurled leaves
of palest green, and glances on
the random stones, each one a tale
of heroism in this wood.
The inner ear hears voices then
- the howls and oaths and sobs of pain –
and flinches from the screams of shells
which shattered trees and soil and men
when Hell’s gates opened on this place.
Now dead leaves mask the pitted soil
of crater holes among the trees
where trenches snake, grass-masked and still,
with bluebells on the parapet.
I think of sweet youth lying there
with shredded limbs and broken smiles
and as I pause, a church bell sounds
as if to give a pious hope.
But here is sacred, where I stand –
it needs no choirs, no altar-rail
but only memory, and love
and silent prayers for lives unlived
and birdsong in an empty wood.

©C.M.M.

Songs on the Somme

Graves at Louvencourt
Originally uploaded by goforchris

On a recent trip to the battlefields of the Somme, I was surprised by how natural it seemed for the group to start singing the old songs after a day of solemn remembrance and reflection. Louvencourt was one of the places where the Last Post was played at the end of our day.

The old songs echo over
undulating ground where once
shells fell. The voices too
are old, for those who
sang them new are
dead, long cold in
narrow graves. The warm air
blows the acrid scent
of golden rape, appropriately
blanketing the fields of war.
Solemnity and laughter seem
uneasy fellows till we think
of youth and daftness and sheer joy
cut down, silenced, gone – and know
that they would smile to hear us sing.
Is there an echo on the wind?
Perhaps. Sing on. Shed tears and play
your last posts where the singers sleep.

© C.M.M. 05/09

Reconciled

In me. Deep in my
soul. Not near, not
present, but closer than
the voices that surround
me day in day.
This is the Comforter
coming quietly, almost
unnoticed from the journey
through the years. No longer
with me, to smile and
look and love, but
clasped firm where death can
do no more, can never
harm again. Friend, the
long years of yearning are
past and you return, more
here than before, closer than the
kiss of parting.

©C.M.M.

Invitation

I wrote this last week for Beauty from Chaos, the Lent blog where it first appeared. An invitation to us all in this season, I felt.

Come, my children, walk with me
through this desert, through the dust,
clasp my hands – you will not fall –
and sing your sweet songs on the road;
bid your loved companions follow
where the daybreak lights the sky.
I will take you onward to
the places you could never dream
until we come to that lone hill
where trees stand black against the light,
their shadow crossed upon the sand
and there your hearts will break and mend
and come forth stronger than you knew.
No, do not weep, my child – not now;
my road will not seem hard at first
and you will know both joy and fear
until the end when through your tears
you see around you flowers of hope
and know that journey’s end is love.

© C.M.M. 03/09

El Teide

For Chris, who led us there and who read this so beautifully.

On a rock, the lizard is
a flicker like the flames below
- grey on red, as ash on fire –
high on the caldera’s rim.
Far below the white of snow
shows the paradox of cold
on these hot plains at Teide’s foot
but on the lip where once the fire
poured down to drown itself below
the dust of fear stirs in the soul
as shadows lengthen once again.
We are so new, so soft. So small.

©C.M.M. 02/09

Grandson

For Alan

That first day, the day we met,
when he lay quiet in my arms
I gazed at his small, sleeping face
and willed that he should look at me
and know. Yet when the black eyes blinked
and opened on the world I was
quite unprepared for such a dark
profound solemnity as if
this tiny boy could see into
the whole immensity of life
and claim it there, and know it his.

©C.M.M. 12/08

Advent Prose revisited

I wrote this in the first week of Advent 08 after listening to the Advent Prose sung in church on Advent Sunday. The words were repeated in that morning's OT lesson from Isaiah, and by the time the reading was over the poem was already forming. It first appeared on love blooms bright

Rend the heavens, come quickly down -
Can we mean it? In the dark
to ask the God to come like this
would have us tremble at the presence
sought that Sunday as we sang.
Behold, thou wast angry and we sinned -
dear God, we try, we know our sin,
we see too clearly where we are.
The veiled women weep, the bomb
explodes on distant soil:
we worry lest our own are there,
care less about the ruined lives
among the debris of our wars.
All our deeds are like a polluted garment -
hung about us in the cold
as if we fear our nakedness,
would do anything to hide.
The child dies at the hands of those
whose task is care and love
while we, appalled, avert our eyes
from innocence betrayed.
We all fade like a leaf
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away -
light little things in the face of creation
and yet, and yet ...
Lord, we continue. You have never
swept us from the face of earth.
We love and beget and children
lovely children, innocent and clean
come naked into the world
in your eternal promise of what can be.
Your Son will come, again, again
and we have hope, another chance
to use your world in precious ways
to hold your people to your face.
As tiny fingers clasp round ours
we reach into the dark and feel
the strength of love enfolding us.
The heavens are rent as if a cloud
were parted at the end of rain
and light will come too bright to tell -
we sing again. Come, Lord, and soon.

©C.M.M