Unfurling

 For my dear LJK, you are ever lovely.

May you beautifully befriend 

Your becoming self

Welcoming with love

Any unexpected unfolding

For the river’s turns

Still lead her winding 

To the vast expanse of sea.

Palestine

 For Palestine 

Who has many voices never heard

Keep on singing

Your freedom is louder than their captivity

The seas will return to your shore.

A home may be something you own 

But it is not your bones, your flesh

That which you caress and hold and carry

Deep within, unseen by them.

Impossible to bulldoze.

A well you keep that cannot be drained or named, shamed or contained

My country lives still

                           Relentlessly defiant.

A Moment of Calm

 

My soul finds words in this silence

Unutterable perhaps

Difficult to decipher

These are quiet sounds

Formed in the absence of presence

The rhythm of breath inhaled 

The call of the bird

Giving voice to what is unspoken

These are quiet sounds

Formed in the presence of absence

Sabbath

Take away noise

 Take away sound

Give me instead the sheep and the cows

Take away words

Take away hands

Hide me inside of the ancient lands

Take away excess

Take away lack

Hold me close to what brings me back

Take away fear

Take away loss

Lead me to the foot of the cross

That I may find that I am found 

That I may see that joy abounds

In giving it up and letting it all go

In trusting in your word that says no and yet says yes to more than we know or could dare to dream or imagine, that shows love beyond what we can fathom. That gathers and enfolds, where we are told, you are not forgotten or too old but you are new each day and free to say I trust you Lord. Have your way. 

This is a year that starts with You.

One Body

 You and I 

Are the sea and sky.

Our salty lips have mingled and met and yet 

how 

quickly we forget

as the distance we traversed 

is now 

rhythmically 

dis joint ed.

The Magic of Water

The sound of the water

leads where you must linger.

Follow it in its steady drip, in its heady grip, in its unrelenting hit.

Follow the smell of the rush,

of the crush,

of the crash, 

of the thrash, 

of the truth, 

of your youth.

Follow the noise that makes old men boys, that makes hearts ache and quake but not break.

Follow the path made by lost sheep and wandering feet, finding they stand in unseen lands.

Follow it because you may and because you must because in doing so you might

just

find again

that which has long been held in its pools and hold it at last in your own two hands, drinking it deep, you and it and the memories you keep drawn down down down. Hiding, hidden, home.