Baby Brother

26/05/2010
Originally uploaded by Mrs Tosh

on the birth of James

Child, you too were this mystery,
this new face shaped and moulded by
its journey into this world’s light,
those dark eyes tightly closed against
the brightness and the gaze of love,
this impassivity of sleep.
Look on the unknown face and know
how passing months will soon reveal
the wants, the tears, the laughter and the love,
the child unfolding like a flower,
the mystery dispelled.

Look, child, look – oh, look at him
and smile, and know the rush of love
for this small stranger in your life –
a new soul born into the world.

C.M.M. 26 May 2010

Touching the past

Ring of Brodgar
Originally uploaded by goforchris

One of the most powerful impressions left by a recent trip to Orkney is the link with a distant past - more distant even than the building of the Pyramids.

Come with me, come to where
the stone circle reaches
to the sunset sky;
come over the cropped grass
where the wind bites at your face.
Come with me to the mound where
the dead are piled
in rickled heaps
of bones picked clean as air
buried with the sky’s claws
their spirits long-flown
beyond the sea-eagles’ soar.
Come with me, oh come.
The anxious birds still call and wheel above
the long-cold hearths,
the sea still seethes and foams below
the cliffs of plated stone.
The past is close – see:
touch it, and know.

©C.M.M.