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

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

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