Spring flowers

Flowers 3
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A strange gift, this
Small, scarred root
Long buried in barren soil,
But she gave it -
Trembling and fearful of
Winter's mockery on
Spring's new growth.
But the light - the
Light that burst in
Unforeseen splendour
In that silent place
Cherished this precious
Shared flowering in its
Vulnerable birth.
And the wounded gardener
Smiled, and turned from the
Tomb-mouth, and
Left the woman to
Face the dawn.

©C.M.M.

Praetorium

PRAETORIUM

Bound in the chains
Of our weakness, our spite,
Derided in the purple of
The world’s acclaim,
Our Lord confounds power.
And the people shout
Crucify him
And the weakness of power mutters
Crucify him
And the confusion of the soul whispers
Crucify him
And they lead him forth to
Crucify him.

©C.M.M.

Night watch

Yesterday's Maundy Thursday poem was written three years ago. This one came to me last night, during the Maundy Watch - always a powerful time of prayer and image.

NIGHT WATCH

Is it here, God, in this garden
where the light wind stirs the leaves
silvered in the hard blue moonlight
- is it here that we must struggle
in the dialogue of self with self?
But the words are hardly spoken
when the vast and swelling ache
- a kind of joy, but of such sharpness
that I gasp, and words are stilled -
of the God so close within me
grows and self is marginalised,
pushed towards the edge of being
so that all I know is Him.
In this sudden fiery knowledge
friends who cannot understand
seem ephemeral and tiny –
Pray, I tell them, watch and pray,
as it comes upon me fiercely
that the end is here, this night,
that the God I carry in me
brooks no shrinking from this goal.
Now my soft palms spread in pleading
look so gentle, feel so dear
and this vulnerable body
breathes and weeps in dread of pain,
till the world turns and the strangers
bring this night watch to its close
and the brother’s kiss of greeting
a last gentle touch of love.

©C.M.M. 04/07

PASSION

The sun sinks towards the hills
As Christ’s words intertwine
With birdsong. Not the dawn’s
Reminder of betrayal, but a
Sweet and undulating current
Flowing into the dark of evening.
In the shadowed garden the song is
Silenced by advancing night,
The prayer silenced by acceptance.

The world’s careless beauty
Mocks the black flames of death –
Birds sing above the drawn sword,
Trees toss over the betraying kiss,
Green earth absorbs the bloodshed,
Men struggle to the light of a distant dawn.
The earth turns still.

©C.M.M

February Poem

And in his garden
in the second month
the hard green spikes
forced their narrow way through
the cold earth, as
Nature's relentless renewal
mocked the many dead.
No spiritual resurrection here, but
undiminished life, visible,
predictable in its season.
But the dead in their
narrow graves bore only
the offerings of remembrance,
rotting in the black blast
from the rain-hid hills,
and faith seemed fainter now
than the sharp blade that
severs, and the distant song of love
was carried in the wind.

© C.M.M.

February Rowan Tree

I wrote this poem a year ago while I was in New Zealand, in the area of Central Otago where goldmining flourished in the 19th century. The contrast of their early autumn with our dreary winter was endlessly powerful.

FEBRUARY ROWAN TREE

A hot wind blows from dusty hills
Under the bright bowl of the sky.
No rain will fall this day, and none
This whole, parched week.
The ghosts walk quiet beside the lake,
The blue grave where their past still sleeps,
And in the hills the crunching scrub
Conceals the burrows where they dug
And crouches on their cold hearth stones.
Now grapes hang heavy in the sun.
A cricket calls. The dry grass sings
And in a garden far from home
Where winter's grasp is barely loosed
The blood red rowans swing.

© C.M.M. 02/06

New poem

CLOUDED

Cumulus is stacked
high in accumulated layers
of grey. Here and there
a line of pink light
betrays the sun we
cannot see. But over
the curved loch a
skein of blue opens
its torn wings on heaven,
a window to what is
always there.

We must
hold to that hidden
lightness when the dark
closes on the mind
like the grip of winter
on the tired embers
of our chilly faith.

©C.M.M. 01/07

Poem for R.S.Thomas

I've been writing over on blethers about the new biography of R.S.Thomas, and about Thomas' poetry, about which I am passionate. The poem reproduced below I wrote on the day I woke to hear the radio announcement of his death.

DEATH OF A POET

I awake to the knowledge
that the one who could
voice such emptiness has
gone in the grey, rain-
worried morning and left
this vacuum my words cannot fill.
How can I bear the
silencing of that voice whose
parting arrows never failed to
pierce my soul,
whose wrestling with his
god defined my own,
other than by hoping for the
bird-shadow of his passing?

©C.M.M. 09/00

The feast of the Epiphany

Another poem from "Ridgewalk"

MORE THAN MYRRH

‘Surely,’ said the fourth,
‘I should bear this gift: to
walk lightly through
the world’s pain; to give
love without the hostage,
and stem the blood’s flow without
bleeding; to offer self and
not feel the tiny
hooks tear the mind –
loving with no demand,
trusting without proof,
believing and yet
letting go?’
And God smiled
and walked the road to
the thorns’ crown that was
the last gift of love.

©C.M.M.

The feast of the Epiphany

Another poem from "Ridgewalk"

MORE THAN MYRRH

‘Surely,’ said the fourth,
‘I should bear this gift: to
walk lightly through
the world’s pain; to give
love without the hostage,
and stem the blood’s flow without
bleeding; to offer self and
not feel the tiny
hooks tear the mind –
loving with no demand,
trusting without proof,
believing and yet
letting go?’
And God smiled
and walked the road to
the thorns’ crown that was
the last gift of love.

©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.

New Poem

ADORING VIRGIN ADORING

The night we invaded the gallery
it rained and the snell wind
clawed through your clothes
and it wasn’t really night –
just late. ‘We close in
twenty minutes,’ said the man
and we chorused, variously,
‘We know’ ‘We’ve come to see
the Botticelli’ – as if he’d
painted only one – and then
we pounded up the spiral stair
under the glooming busts
and burst into the empty room.
And there she glowed
from a wall on our right
the pale face surrounded by
transparencies of flower
in pink. Floating. And we
stopped. The face was one
you might see reading on a bus -
not archaic or distant but
concerned, as if remembering
as she gazed, not at the child
but over, round and through.

Remembering or looking to
the piercing both of hands and soul?
Or was she seeing inwardly
the flaming eyes that greeted her
as problematically blessed
and hearing as she knelt to pray
the distant sound of snowy wings?
We stared in quiet until the room
was filled with unseen Gabriels
and then we heard approach not wings
but ordinary feet -‘It’s time’-
and smiled at this young messenger
and drifted into the wild rain
under a sky whose stars were dimmed
as lights and tinsel took their place.

© C.M.M. 12/06

Advent Song

ADVENT SONG

Look, God, look
in the vastness of your dark
hear this song
in the chorus of the world
where I sing
for the glory of your coming
held by love
as the music pours from me
a flame within
as the night falls around me
hear my prayer
and come through the darkness
hold me waiting
as you wait to be born.

© C.M.M.

The irrational season

This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there'd have been no room for the child.

- Madeleine L'Engle

Winter Song

In winter dark, the western dark
where lights glow small and waiting hearts
feel grow again the aching hope
that Christ will come, will come to them,
the winds of heaven cut to the bone,
the time-shaved bone in long night’s sleep.
But here the Christ-child still may seem
to come in love to frozen souls,
the warmth of flame to lone hearth-stone
and hope among the lingering husks
of leaves that cling on tortured trees
to whisper that the time is near.
The shadows dance, the candles flare.
We wait in quiet beneath the storm –
our Lord will come, the child be born.

© C.M.M. Advent06

Prayer

Looking south
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

God of the grey sea
God of the mourning wind
God of the bleak northern sky
Give me your fire to warm my cold thoughts
Your light to bear in the face of fear
Your warmth to hold close to my trembling
Your companionship on the lonely path
And at the end the brightness of the open door
And the joy of a long-awaited greeting.

Amen.

© C.M.M.

Heard melodies are sweet ....

A poem arising from listening to Liszt's organ piece "Ave Maria by Arcadelt". For me, this piece is associated with Christmas, and the allusions are to that time of year.

HEARD MELODIES

The days that followed your quiet end
were filled with bright, hard-shadowed light
and cold cut drily to the bones
and froze the tears as yet unwept.
The world seemed lit as if a stage
which you had left, your part discharged,
and music played like distant bells
heard on the road beneath the stars.
Was it to set the music free
you turned away from struggle then?
For if you chose the path you took
you left this lightness like a gift
with which we joined the search of those
who brought the myrrh, and bring it still.

© C.M.M. 10/06

Stabat mater dolorosa

Stabat mater dolorosa
iuxta Cruxem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.

Singing these words to Pergolesi's music this evening, I thought of all the mothers, their heads covered, weeping over their dead children in the lands of the Middle East. The words are so charged for Christians with the weight of Good Friday, but as the music lamented with the woman who had to watch her son die I could feel also the pain of those other, helpless, weeping women. We sing; they mourn. God is crucified daily, and we stand and watch.

Remembering in Beta

Ok, so this is what happens when you switch. It's ok. I rather like this template too. I thought I might start posting the odd poem here, just to see how it goes. If anyone visits, I'd be glad to hear from you!

This poem was written at this time of year, but a few years ago. George died not long after taking part in the TV programme on which I saw him. Count this as my poppy for this year.

GEORGE 1998

The strong young face is yet
Visible, hardly blurred by
The eighty-year journey from
Passchendaele. Inane questions seem
Impertinent, but age has brought patience.
‘I were a strappin’ lad.’
And this self-knowledge had
Catapulted him into
Hell. Stripped of friends by
Hot shards of death he has
Persisted through three more generations.
Now a little child shall
Lead him through the neat
City of the dead to meet again
A friend still young.
Dear God, when the end
Comes quietly, how will he explain?


© C.M.M. 12/11/98