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.

Communicating

I wrote this poem over 3 years ago, but was reminded of it when I found our family house on Google Earth street view.

Today I would have phoned -

wished to share the small

details of my life, the

safe return, the laughing

at the rain which fell

as if the Flood would come.

But had I rung the number

as familiar as my name

you would not be there.

A stranger’s voice would say

your words, and the strangeness

would be too much to bear.

And contemplating this

a glacial shifting in my soul

gave promise that in weeks not lived

the frozen tears would find the way

and spill into a distant sea like

drops into the ocean of my love.

© C.M.M.

Delville Wood

Bluebells on the parapet
Originally uploaded by goforchris

Delville Wood on the Somme was the site of a terrible battle in WW1. One tree remains from that period; the rest of the wood has grown since the carnage. It is a powerful and beautiful place.

The trees are still. The morning light
flickers through unfurled leaves
of palest green, and glances on
the random stones, each one a tale
of heroism in this wood.
The inner ear hears voices then
- the howls and oaths and sobs of pain –
and flinches from the screams of shells
which shattered trees and soil and men
when Hell’s gates opened on this place.
Now dead leaves hide the pitted soil
of crater holes among the trees
where trenches snake, grass-masked and still,
with bluebells on the parapet.
I think of sweet youth lying there
with shredded limbs and broken smiles
and as I pause, a church bell sounds
as if to give a pious hope.
But here is sacred, where I stand –
it needs no choirs, no altar-rail
but only memory, and love
and silent prayers for lives unlived
and birdsong in an empty wood.

©C.M.M.

Songs on the Somme

Graves at Louvencourt
Originally uploaded by goforchris

On a recent trip to the battlefields of the Somme, I was surprised by how natural it seemed for the group to start singing the old songs after a day of solemn remembrance and reflection. Louvencourt was one of the places where the Last Post was played at the end of our day.

The old songs echo over
undulating ground where once
shells fell. The voices too
are old, for those who
sang them new are
dead, long cold in
narrow graves. The warm air
blows the acrid scent
of golden rape, appropriately
blanketing the fields of war.
Solemnity and laughter seem
uneasy fellows till we think
of youth and daftness and sheer joy
cut down, silenced, gone – and know
that they would smile to hear us sing.
Is there an echo on the wind?
Perhaps. Sing on. Shed tears and play
your last posts where the singers sleep.

© C.M.M. 05/09

Reconciled

In me. Deep in my
soul. Not near, not
present, but closer than
the voices that surround
me day in day.
This is the Comforter
coming quietly, almost
unnoticed from the journey
through the years. No longer
with me, to smile and
look and love, but
clasped firm where death can
do no more, can never
harm again. Friend, the
long years of yearning are
past and you return, more
here than before, closer than the
kiss of parting.

©C.M.M.

Invitation

I wrote this last week for Beauty from Chaos, the Lent blog where it first appeared. An invitation to us all in this season, I felt.

Come, my children, walk with me
through this desert, through the dust,
clasp my hands – you will not fall –
and sing your sweet songs on the road;
bid your loved companions follow
where the daybreak lights the sky.
I will take you onward to
the places you could never dream
until we come to that lone hill
where trees stand black against the light,
their shadow crossed upon the sand
and there your hearts will break and mend
and come forth stronger than you knew.
No, do not weep, my child – not now;
my road will not seem hard at first
and you will know both joy and fear
until the end when through your tears
you see around you flowers of hope
and know that journey’s end is love.

© C.M.M. 03/09

El Teide

For Chris, who led us there and who read this so beautifully.

On a rock, the lizard is
a flicker like the flames below
- grey on red, as ash on fire –
high on the caldera’s rim.
Far below the white of snow
shows the paradox of cold
on these hot plains at Teide’s foot
but on the lip where once the fire
poured down to drown itself below
the dust of fear stirs in the soul
as shadows lengthen once again.
We are so new, so soft. So small.

©C.M.M. 02/09

Grandson

For Alan

That first day, the day we met,
when he lay quiet in my arms
I gazed at his small, sleeping face
and willed that he should look at me
and know. Yet when the black eyes blinked
and opened on the world I was
quite unprepared for such a dark
profound solemnity as if
this tiny boy could see into
the whole immensity of life
and claim it there, and know it his.

©C.M.M. 12/08

Advent Prose revisited

I wrote this in the first week of Advent 08 after listening to the Advent Prose sung in church on Advent Sunday. The words were repeated in that morning's OT lesson from Isaiah, and by the time the reading was over the poem was already forming. It first appeared on love blooms bright

Rend the heavens, come quickly down -
Can we mean it? In the dark
to ask the God to come like this
would have us tremble at the presence
sought that Sunday as we sang.
Behold, thou wast angry and we sinned -
dear God, we try, we know our sin,
we see too clearly where we are.
The veiled women weep, the bomb
explodes on distant soil:
we worry lest our own are there,
care less about the ruined lives
among the debris of our wars.
All our deeds are like a polluted garment -
hung about us in the cold
as if we fear our nakedness,
would do anything to hide.
The child dies at the hands of those
whose task is care and love
while we, appalled, avert our eyes
from innocence betrayed.
We all fade like a leaf
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away -
light little things in the face of creation
and yet, and yet ...
Lord, we continue. You have never
swept us from the face of earth.
We love and beget and children
lovely children, innocent and clean
come naked into the world
in your eternal promise of what can be.
Your Son will come, again, again
and we have hope, another chance
to use your world in precious ways
to hold your people to your face.
As tiny fingers clasp round ours
we reach into the dark and feel
the strength of love enfolding us.
The heavens are rent as if a cloud
were parted at the end of rain
and light will come too bright to tell -
we sing again. Come, Lord, and soon.

©C.M.M

Mary's baby

This poem was finished four hours before I knew that Alan, my grandson, had been born to Mary. It speaks to me of that other Mary while being about a contemporary birth - or indeed birth's miracle at any time.

For Alan John McIntosh

It is time. From deep within
my inner dark a sudden
fierce tightening calls out.
Be still, I say. Be quiet.
This child will come
will find the light
will be the light
new in my life, but now
I want to keep him close
keep him mine alone.

A huge force squeezes me again
taking me beyond the lighted space
into the dark of inwardness
focussed only on the pain
forgetting self and any joy
to come from such gigantic toil.
Someone cries inside my head
and anxious faces swim and fade
and leave my eyes alone to look
and marvel at a miracle
as something infinitely huge and small
is born, and lifted to my arms.

My heart is broken and remade.

My son looks up. His black eyes gaze
on heaven one last lingering time
before they close against my breast.
We are alone, and all the world
shrinks to a tiny, distant speck
as swelling joy fills all my soul.

I hold him close. My son is born.

©C.M.M. 28/11/08

November afternoon

For NJFM

That dreary day of early dark
I baked a cake - my thirty-fifth -
for Christmas, happy at the thought
of something done and stored away.
And as the warmly scented air
stole through the house, I glanced outside
to where the leaves could just be seen
dancing in the garden's gloom
as if in hope to see my child,
small and purposeful and quick,
come down the path towards the light
and smile at being grown-up
returning home without my help.
I smiled myself at years compressed
by memory, repeated tasks
and Christmases which mark the time
to where that child can now be seen
awaiting in his turn a child
approaching in the winter's dark.

©C.M.M.

Afterbirth

After the struggling's long dark
the wailing and the exhortation
the pain of separation and the sudden
rush of birth there comes a moment
precious in its quiet simplicity
when I recognise a new truth
shining in the newness of that day
as with a sudden huge swelling from my soul
replacing that hugeness now a tiny child
the happiness within is known and named.

There will be a time for more naming
and more recognition of this child
at once the closest stranger in my world
and my newest love, but now
is time for happiness alone
enjoyed and savoured in this peace
held between the movements of a song.

©CM.M. 11/08

Autumn Flowers

Two nasturtiums bloomed today.
I saw their gold as the sun
Tipped my autumn garden with
Illusive warmth. I took the seeds
From the drawer you placed them in
Years since, and planted late in some
Faint hope of their survival.
They flower, but the year is spent
As are your years, and winter comes.
These unplanted seeds were hope
Abandoned as your vigour faded,
Their tiny sunbursts a last dawn
Of tenderness before the dark.
Go on your journey, gently, now,
The last sun warm upon your face.
©C.M.M 09/04

Cathedral of the Holy Spirit

Cathedral of The Isles
Originally uploaded by goforchris

There was a church, rising
Above green terraces of
Pleasing symmetry,
Surely too neat, too
Small to encompass much
Mystery. Yet in that
Silent shell, in the golden
Brass-glow of candles,
God would touch
Careless souls, catch their
Hearts in a mesh of
Incandescent song, so that
Those who knelt there would
Pass through the veil of light
To the bright places beyond.

© C.M.M.

Hymn for Cumbrae

Cathedral of The Isles 2
Originally uploaded by goforchris

The Spirit guides me here,
to meet upon this hill
The outstretched arms, the wounded hands,
The love that finds me still.

In silence I am held,
Until my song takes flight
And breaking forth in golden notes
Fills heart and soul with light.

When I must leave this place
And face the world again
Good Saviour, from such holy ground
Come with me to the plain.

Consume my soul with fire,
Let love and peace fly free,
And at the end take all I am
And shape what I must be.

©C.M.M

Responding

Sometimes poetry seems to me to be the only vehicle suitable to express an idea or an emotion. This poem arose from my reading of a small part of Jürgen Moltmann's "The Trinity and the Kingdom".

RESPONDING

It is dark, dark night.
Take this cup – suddenly in the dark
it is too awful. But the warm tide
is receding into the dark
and the cold sweat of emptiness
takes its place. The desperate words
fall unheeded on the stony ground.
Withdrawn in a point of light
God has no ears, only pain
and tight-focussed squeezing of the great
love now raw and bright
above Golgotha. The night is past
but dark remains, and emptiness.
A searing cry bruises the great mind
drenched in the pain of loss and
separation – and this is done
for me, this hellish loss, this bruising …
so that I can see, can understand,
am not forsaken. It is too much.
Too much for me. Too much.

© C.M.M.

Bird-brained

A sudden rush of wings heralds
a thrush in triumph with a snail
shining wetly in its beak.

A second flurry and a second
bird appears, brownish-black,
aggressive movements: I want that!

The thrush heads off, hiding deep
among the million roses’ thorns.
A black eye looks at me and then

The blackbirds’ wife with one bold move
is standing just inside the room
which smells of ironing and clean shirts –

a blink of reckless possibility –
to wreak havoc in the warm clean space
with feathers, droppings, frenzied wings …

But no. She turns, and hops away
a bird again, in her own place.
The snail? Dead meat. The sun still shines.

C.M.M. 07/08

Once ...

In the hot silence
while he slept
and only the flies sang
she made the basket
strong with love
to hold this one most precious thing
and gave it, dry-eyed,
to the waiting flood.

© C.M.M. 08/08

Garden at noon

The garden, Kington
Originally uploaded by goforchris

The sun’s light is such as to
obliterate all colour save the
red and purple in a pot
behind which a gang of
glossy bees plunder thick lavender.
Another casual urn is tightly packed
with small blooms –
such careless profusion betraying
the industry of cooler days.
Behind the tall poppy-brides
a sinister trampling suddenly ends
as a blackbird emerges, ruffled
in foolishness at being caught.
Pink roses hang in full-term weight
above the hidden path, guarded by
a spiky sentinel in a tall pot.
And as the tall trees toss in the
wind’s stir, three black jets
scream belatedly as they wheel.
Do they look, the men within,
to see below this garden stuffed with life
and fly on, their hot metal tombs
filled at once with remembered scents?

© C.M.M. 07/08

Llananno revisited

Llananno church
Originally uploaded by goforchris

In an empty church
where once a poet prayed
I sat, the sudden cool
a contrast with the world
of sun and life and heat
beside the river’s glint,
beneath the hurried road.

Above the skewed cross
behind the dying flowers,
the empty candlesticks,
a huge, green tree
filtered the sun's light
which flickered on the stone
as the great mind of God
thrust a small pulse of its power
into my waiting soul.

©C.M.M.

I recently visited this tiny church in the Welsh border country, a church which is barely ever used, a church immortalised in a poem by R.S.Thomas who liked to visit it in much the same way as I did.