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.

Advent Child: for Anna

Anna
Originally uploaded by Mac44

She came with the first snow,
the Advent child, a small, crumpled flower
opening beneath the hard stars.
The tiny clever hand has minute nails
and closes warm around my soul.
The dark eyes seem serene and filled
with unborn wisdom far beyond
the knowledge born of age.
My world contracts to hold this
shining moment in a timeless breath
as the snow falls and the world stops
and all the Advent waiting seems to end
in this new child, this vulnerable love
melting the frozen darkness
from the winter of my heart.

© C.M.M. 12/10

Ben Donich

Each climb to the high places brings

a question: will I come again?

The wind blows, the crow swoops by

on silent wings, upcurved and still

on the flying air, and I no longer

earthbound feel the soaring

and wonder when the flight will end.

The spacious air mocks this

introspection, calls me to

the briefly precious moment

on this thin-earthed crag

where the rock glints hard in the

noonday sun and the fool’s gold

shines at my fingertips

and the downward path curves

into the purple afternoon.

©C.M.M.

Cowal Games: Midnight

Along the crescent, in the middle of the night,

a hooded figure minces, its tight step

in bondage to its low-slung jeans. It looks along

its shoulder at the road, and then I see

the green glow from the mobile phone

held like a talisman against the dark –

against the loneliness of being young

as other figures seem to taunt

by being three instead of one.

And hidden at the window I observe

this interplay of darkness and of threat

as distant voices call and jeer

and music snatches at the air

in this, the hour of midnight lives

before the silence of the dawn.

Morgan in school

I wrote this ten years ago, the last time Edwin Morgan visited Dunoon Grammar School. Someone else sent the poem to him, and he replied: "I was touched by her words. I promise to 'speak for us still' as long as I am able!"

And he did.

Your words fall quieter now,

Poet, sometimes submerged in

The hornet hum that is

Technology's voice. Older, you yet

Play young men's games with

Joyous random images from

Mercury to Maryhill.

I see you a small, valiant

Bird-figure in canary yellow,

Quick light movements underpinning

Words as fluent as a song.

The circle of young faces,

Sunflowers in rapt attendance,

Bear witness to your potent

Weaving of wisdom with youth's vigour.

Speak for us still, poet, lest

The tide of dumbness sweep over our

Inarticulate longings, and we drown.

©C.M.M. 11/00

Weathered

This poem is the child of the previous post - a development rooted in the same experience.

The wind chases bright fractured

gleams over the grey sea,

the tree-dark green

of the encircling hill -

tosses the petals with small regard

for their fragile beauty.

The sun comes only in

short bursts punctuating

the fat grey of the clouds

gestating tirelessly above my head.

In such a way it too comes -

I cannot call it He, this vastness

with its divine connotations

randomly and so seldom here.

But were it summer heat

always, without the aching

chill of clouded skies,

would I ever know the

sudden searing joy

of unexpected warmth?

©C.M.M.

Morning, July

After the night of wind and rain
I went out into the startled garden
where the white blossom littered
the ground beneath the scented bush
and shreds of tree lay torn on the ruffled
grass. From a tall chimney a gull
wailed in some unknown grief
and magpies bickered in the holly tree
brittle among the pruned crown's thorns.


No warmth to still the restless mind
or please with easy mindless toil
of pruning, cutting, lifting weeds -
no. This is where we live our days
as light flies over restless sea
and lights on us so fleetingly
that joy results, and glows within -
so come, then, wind, into my soul
and startle me with transience.

©C.M.M.

Baby Brother

26/05/2010
Originally uploaded by Mrs Tosh

on the birth of James

Child, you too were this mystery,
this new face shaped and moulded by
its journey into this world’s light,
those dark eyes tightly closed against
the brightness and the gaze of love,
this impassivity of sleep.
Look on the unknown face and know
how passing months will soon reveal
the wants, the tears, the laughter and the love,
the child unfolding like a flower,
the mystery dispelled.

Look, child, look – oh, look at him
and smile, and know the rush of love
for this small stranger in your life –
a new soul born into the world.

C.M.M. 26 May 2010

Touching the past

Ring of Brodgar
Originally uploaded by goforchris

One of the most powerful impressions left by a recent trip to Orkney is the link with a distant past - more distant even than the building of the Pyramids.

Come with me, come to where
the stone circle reaches
to the sunset sky;
come over the cropped grass
where the wind bites at your face.
Come with me to the mound where
the dead are piled
in rickled heaps
of bones picked clean as air
buried with the sky’s claws
their spirits long-flown
beyond the sea-eagles’ soar.
Come with me, oh come.
The anxious birds still call and wheel above
the long-cold hearths,
the sea still seethes and foams below
the cliffs of plated stone.
The past is close – see:
touch it, and know.

©C.M.M.

Prayer for Good Friday

Station of the Cross
Originally uploaded by goforchris

In the solemn quiet
in the emptiness of soul
in the silencing of love
in the darkness of loss
come to us, God,
with the steady faith
that you are there
that your power is at work
that the light will come again
that your Son will come to us
in the joy of the Resurrection
and the promise of eternal life
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Iona Stones

This prayer/poem came as the result of a short stay on Iona, when I did indeed hurl a symbolic stone into the sea at the start of Lent.

Two pebbles in my cold hand
close-nestled in symbolic weight,
one mottled red, resentment red,
the other green and cool as is
the light of God.
The red is gone now to the cleansing sea;
the green held close in hope of what might be.
God grant that rush of light again
and drown my soul in your green tide -
the tide of God.

©C.M.M. Iona, 02/10

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