The desert

Thorn bush
Originally uploaded by goforchris

How easy, then, to have belief
when travelling by sight -
when stars are bright, are gleaming hard,
the sky as black as it should be
the road an afterthought.

How simple when the fire is warm
to bear the winter's chill -
to feel that fierce suffusing fire
consuming doubt and passing years
as dry things in its path.

I feel the road. Its stony way
is treacherous beneath my feet.
The boredom aches - but if I look
around I see the other grey
and lonely souls whose journey takes
the same lost path as mine.

If I could stop for precious time
to wait and feel and know,
out of the dark surrounding me
the pressure of that unseen light
might come again - might flood the soul -
come, Lord. Come soon. Come now.

©C.M.M.

Another Epiphany

This poem has actually gone the rounds a bit - I posted it on blethers at this time last year, and it appears in the collection "Who - me?" However, as I now have this poetry blog and some new (I hope) readers, I repost it as a further working of the ideas which surfaced in the earlier poem.

SEARCHING

We plod through a desert
of our own making. We,
the wise men of our time, knowing
everything and nothing, search for what
we do not understand.
The mysteries of time and space are
hidden from us no longer, but
inner space defeats us.
The vacancy offends our
proud mastery of life and death.
We who cure and kill with
profligate ease cannot bear
such painful uncertainty.

And so with each
turning year we mount our
star-led beasts and seek again
the strange child, desperately.

And some are seeking kindness
or the fleeting warmth of joy,
and some the distant music
of a half-remembered song.
But do we dare to follow
where that star-light leads,
clutching tawdry gifts as
the proof of our intent?

For
far beyond the stable where the
child becomes the man
the swift breath of love's passing bears
the wood scent and the tears
and the guideless journey onward
from the weeping and the tomb.

©C.M.M.

A poem for Epiphany

I wrote the following poem on the Feast of the Epiphany, 2000. It appears in the collection "Ridgewalk", but I reproduce it here as a result of reflecting on Christmas without Christ - which is the celebration I see all around, laced with a kind of desperation.

EPIPHANY 2000

Two thousand years after the
star's silent summons
light from the stable still
burns momentarily; the
impermanent Magi still
make their improbable journey.
Perched on the lip
of another era, we
strain to feel the faint
warmth of faith,
kissing the wind of
love's passing, yearning
from our pulsating circuits for
the connection to hold.
And as the moment passes
we look ahead, not at
light's comfort but at the
stark shadow on the hill.