Superfluous

I've been going on for years about the problem of language as a vehicle for abstract thought - in particular the snares of prose, which seems to simplify but can end up destroying. R.S.Thomas has been here already; this is my take just now.

Superfluous

Myriad words pinned to paper
in the never-ending search
for truth that hovers through the ages
on the tantalising edge of faith -
so we struggle with expressing
that bright fire to which we give a face,
humanise, imagine friendship
through the realm of time and space.

But the prayer when it happens
comes in darkness and in heat,
still eludes our Babel-clamour,
needs our silence to defeat
the world God’s children have constructed
from complexity and rules
till we rise again, replenished,
filled with fire that nothing cools.

© C.M.M. 07/19

Jordan

The burden of that sudden light
Overwhelms my shrinking self
As I step into the surge
Of life and what will come.
The holy dove, its wings outspread,
Hovers close. No comfort there.
I see the darkness pressing back
Around the edges of my world
Through eyes half closed,
Through lash and hair
That covers my defenceless face.
The water swirls. I feel the tug
Of forces far beyond my reach.
I will obey. God, I accept
- will lift this burden that is Light.

C.M.M.
© Back, Lewis. June 19.

(Inspired by a painting by Daniel Bonnel, The Baptism of the Christ)

Outburst

O, be silent when the God speaks -
do not blurt your blunted vision
to distort or seek to bend
the flow of love and pain.
Listen. Open. Feel the keenness
of the shaft that wounds the soul;
feel the way you change, but quiet
like a child that hears a call.

Only then, within that silence
can the music truly sing,
make the wordless song of heaven
sweep you up until your tongue
is freed from all the weight of language
 - free to wonder, free to cease -
and your soul can shed what has been,
free to wander heaven’s peace.

© C.M.M. Back, Lewis, June 2019

Springing thoughts

Two days after the last snow left

I saw the tiny hint of life

in colour, purple, on the mud

which rain had flooded winter-long,

and thought of Spring.

Encouraged by the silent sun

the lack of wind, the sudden song

- a blackbird sitting on a pole -

in air so silent I could hear

the rush of wings above my head 

as pigeons - should I call them doves?

 - set off briskly over roofs 

and gardens, sodden mossy lawns

and foodless shrubs where dunnocks live

I stopped, for long enough to feel.

But what I felt was not the joy

that children feel when freedom calls

but rather that nostalgic pain

more keen with every passing year

that tells me each Spring takes us up

the path towards that distant peak

where only faith says flowers will bloom.

© C.M.M 02/18

Another Advent

Another Advent

for AM, who suggested possibilities



From the darkness that returns
each year we sing our plaintive song
and ask that God will come again
and fill our lives with what we know
and hardly know is all we need.
The fire burns low, the night is long,
and yet we feel in some way held
within the circle of this flame
that still we tend with anxious care
in some place hidden from the eyes
that mock and laugh and turn away
with restless ease towards their end.
The world too turns, and we await
the power that fills our life with light
and let our alleluias ring
within the darkness of the earth.

C.M.M. 12/17

Argyll Weather

ARGYLL WEATHER
A Sonnet for Jim

The rain drifts in grey curtains from the hills
and turns the loch’s black surface into lace
before a random wind takes up the chase
that now obliterates the day it kills.
The burn beside me gurgles as it fills
and overflows. There’s water on my face,
the path I followed gone without a trace,
enthusiasm drowned in sudden chills.

But as I turn to make my sodden way
to shelter, warmth …dry feet … a sudden gleam
appears. It’s like another day.
The wet rock all around me starts to steam
and birdsong cuts the air as if to say
This is Argyll. Things are not what they seem.

C.M.M. 12/17

Perhaps

Aonach Eagach, Glencoe

Perhaps 

The path is steep and rocky

and my body’s growing tired.

I’m looking for the summit cairn,

the peak I hope to find - 

and at the top I’ll rest awhile

and take a look around, 

decide if I’ve the energy

for the track above the cloud.

For I know that there's more climbing, 

there are still flowers at my feet,

but weariness keeps nagging me - 

a voice I cannot cheat.

I’ve wandered far, I’ve sung my songs, 

the wind is still as sweet, 

but all of us are passing through

to where all pathways meet.

My track is strewn with metaphor

and words mean what you read.

We all of us hear different songs

along the roads we tread.

 But looming in the distance

 or rising at our feet

that final hill is where we go

and where all pathways meet.

© C.M.M. 10/16

Eyes wide open

One pale, quiet morning, 

I open my soul’s eyes 

unarmed with faith or company, 

responsibility or joy, 

and see quite plain

the vastness of it all, the loneliness, 

the very impossibility of life.

A hand in the desert - 

will there be a hand? 

Someone who knows the way

to travel this grey distance

and find the distant hills?

The question hangs

in the still air. But 

in the birdless silence

is that the gentle ripple

not mocking or sardonic

but inviting, is that -

oh please, is that -

a companionable laugh?

© C.M. 03/13

Ridgewalk

I have walked the high places, seen

the haze in the glaciated

trough beneath my feet;

I have heard the raven’s croak

among tall crags, felt the winds

keen around my head. I have

trusted my life to a friend, sensed the

taut rope’s reassurance,

known the joy of balance

on the white path’s ribbon.

I have sensed the unseen God in

the fierce, dangerous joy, the

tension and the trust, and always,

always the wind of his breath

piling the tumultuous clouds,

sweeping the pale sky clear.

©C.M.M. 12/01

Arles: Feria du Riz

Photo ©Fraser Shiells, by permission

Sitting at lunch beneath the shade

we heard the gunfire - loud, sharp - 

and then the growing noise of cheers

above the music of the band

and rushed to line the barricade

between us and the road.

And what came next was troubling to

the me that thinks I’m civilised

as horses clattered in the dust

and lances waved and suddenly

I saw the bulls - small, dusty, black

and gone: a swiftness barely seen

as bodies swirled and young boys clawed

and darted in among the hooves

and grabbed and cheered and strutted there.

And my blood raced in sympathy

as small dogs yapped beside my legs

and all my civilised disdain

was pulverised and lay in dust.

C.M. 09/12

This was a fascinating, thrilling and ultimately disturbing experience - the more so because I had not anticipated the event. I'm grateful to my friend Fraser Shiells for his photo - the speed of everything made it hard to capture, and this moment, when one of the bulls escaped the corralling horses and headed back down the road on its own, was especially dramatic.

Night Piper

Photo ©Ewan McIntosh

Into a random dream, only half-remembered,

dances the noise of -

God, it’s pipes! And it’s

three am and I’ve been sleeping but

I leap from my bed and look 

out and there they are: a man, 

pipes shouldered, marching along

the sleeping crescent playing 

his heart out. And it’s not just the old

Scotland the Brave stuff but

an intricate shifting pattern of notes

and he’s good, good, but

far too loud for my wincing brain.

In front of this marching kilt 

five figures dance

yes, dance,

keeping time as they

make their way past the

dark houses which seem

like me not to have welcomed them

with lights, but they don’t care.

Light on their feet and lightly

rhythmic they pass on and the music sounds

more and more distant as the night 

folds back and sleep floods over

the vacant echoes of the town.

©C.M.M.

This happened on the only weekend of the year when such things are, in fact, normal - Cowal Games weekend. The poem actually suggested itself to me as I was drifting back to sleep, but I've taken almost a week to get round to putting it down.

MIners' Gala 1984

I’m riding on a lorry through

the Edinburgh streets. Beside

me is a missile, quite small,

made of cardboard painted

silver. Should be black.

Upturned faces in the sun

stare white; some shout:

Save oor pits, missus –

as if this missile

had the power to sweep away

the English government of the day

and blow it back to when

their fathers walked in

heavy boots, pale in the

morning sun and back,

black-faced at dusk

from hellish pits of endless toil

that now would end

and they would miss. And I

and my missile trundle on,

an incidental sideshow

in Thatcher’s Circus 84.

C.M.M 05/12

A sudden memory, triggered by local election talk and the despair of those who feel government cares little for them. This was certainly the case in 1984, the year of the Miners' Strike, after which the mining industry was never the same again. As CND activists we were seen as allies against the Thatcher government, though I felt strongly that in that situation we were merely demonstrating solidarity - for there was nothing we could do about it, any more than the miners whose families lined the Edinburgh streets on that sunny day.

The Garden

That night there was no

peace in the garden. The voice

beat randomly and wordless

on the shrinking sense as the flames

flickered irritably in the unseen chill.

The struggling prayer faltered

with each startling blow and

died as the God’s voice dwindled and

withdrew. And when the silence fell

blessedly and the night grew still

it was already over, this riven time,

and the marching feet, the harsher

shouts, the drawn steel glinting

in the dark – to this the prayer had led

and left the silence of the grave.

C.M.M. 04/12

Dali's Christ

 © Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums)

There are no nails

no bonds or blood to mar

perfection. Instead, the figure hangs

beautiful above the flat sea

watched – or ignored – by anachronistic fishermen,

brooding over the water yet

soaring out to embrace

the viewer in the small space

dwarfed by the cosmos that is

the final resting of the crucified.

The humanity is complete,

the only agony visible in the twist

of the arms, the taut sculpture

of tormented shoulders,

but this is God who leaves behind

the tawdry superscription that would

seek to limit him,

this is God who reaches out as

crucifix to dying lips

as benediction to the world

as light into the darkened sky –

stop. Look up. Can you not

feel the wind?

C.M.M. 02/12

Dali's painting, Christ of St John of the Cross, hangs in the Kelvingrove Art Galleries in Glasgow. I grew up visiting it, and wrote this poem after my most recent visit, when I saw it in a fourth new setting. I am indebted to Glasgow Museums for permission to use the image.

Thinking of angels

Oh, do not try to make it ordinary
or even think of credibility -
this visitation by the angel
or many
to shepherds in their freezing fields
or Mary -
no: I see hosts of snowy wings
descending in impossible sweeps
of power, I see
faces taut and gleaming, and those
piercing eyes that penetrate the soul
so that breath fails, and when it
passes there remains a vacuum -
and perhaps just a single
                                          shining
                                                       feather.


©C.M.M. 12/11

Dedicated to the choir of St Thomas, Fifth Avenue, for their singing of A Babe is Born (Matthias)

I've used a different picture here of the Annunciation from the one I used on blethers  - though nothing I could find quite matched the vision I had!

Winter Solstice

The silver tree is a white ghost

in the dimpled white of last week’s snow

as the pale glow in the eastern sky

shows where the short-lived sun will rise

while night withdraws itself to where

a thin moon hangs above the hills.

The coloured lights of the coming feast

Shine in the silent streets below;

The last cries of the drunken night

Are echoes, and the drinkers sleep.

The birds wait, frozen on the tree.

A prayer stirs in the coldest heart.

© C.M.M. 12/11

Suffering General

The original Southern General Hospital, Glasgow

Hospitals no longer have that smell

- the fearful pungency of old -

no: there is a casual air

about the hours of waiting, where

random chat is fractured

and coffee cups abandoned

as if this were a station –

a brief halt in life’s affairs

a stop along the line

before the terminus.

Stop: don’t think of terminus,

not here, among the shifting

interrupted lives of those

who miss their names –

impatient calls and repetitions –

then stumble off to share their need

and leave, calmed for now or not,

out into the grey day where fog

swirls round a half-built tower

and coughing echoes in the biting air.

©C.M. 11/11

The conversation

Under a pale sun - not cool,just
grey and calm - the words
flowed. Dissonance and history,
patronage and eternal things,
maths and music and the links or
not links were tossed about,
resolved and questioned,
worried and smoothed against the demons
that might darken a day.
And all around the earnest talk
the birdsong fluttered in the unthinking light,
the peerless technique of the singers
rising and falling among the flowers,
its challenge merely territorial
its  beauty only in our minds.

C.M.M 07/11

Birdsong in Gethsemane

In the darkling garden

a lone bird drops

liquid notes like dark blood

beneath the quiet trees. And then

silence. And in the silence

the old struggle surges

as flesh and soul pull

apart. The body aches

to be the prayer, to feel

the God’s warmth

in the darkness. But

there is only stillness

and the blood’s song

and the everlasting longing

as somewhere far away

innocence sleeps.

©C.M.M. 04/11

Dark Waiting

Dying light
Originally uploaded by goforchris

This poem was commissioned for the Advent issue of Inspires magazine. As the magazine is now out, with the poem very handsomely presented, I feel free to share it here: the first poem I've ever written to order. I'm grateful for the stimulus - I thought I might have written all the Advent poems I was going to.

As the months slide towards
the winter dark, the first pang
of longing stirs, like the
quickening of the unborn child –
the sudden recognition, yet again,
of waiting and of need.

This deep-felt urge was surely felt
each winter, on the darkest fringe
where small fires flickered in the gloom
and men looked east, towards the rim
where every morning brought the sun
a little fainter, lower, cold –
and now we wait another dawn,
a birth of hope and love and trust.
And do we long to see the Son,
or long for longing, long to kiss
the wind of love, its passing felt
by all who light their candles here?
The child stirs in the womb of dark.
We stretch our hands in hope, and wait.

©C.M.M.