Words

I write, and the words come so easily
But when I speak, do I speak life?

I type, and the keyboard creates my thoughts
Yet I speak, and thoughts scatter like broken pencil tips
Into the corners of my life
And words lie fallen on the ground
I wish unsaid.

"Guard your lips, for they are the wellspring of life"

San Diego, 11 Sept '96

Perhaps it's in our poetry, our scupture and our second hand communications that we will one day touch each other. The only other way is through the cross, and even then we don't touch each other, but it is Christ who touches us, and touches the "other" through us. A mute incomprehensible is all that otherwise remains, of creed, of language, of skin colour.

Why this is so I have no idea.

Blame it all on the rainbow. Then weep, and see the rainbow in your tears, falling to a hardened earth.

(I think this is mine. I found it in a notebook after reading Alan Paton's "Tales from a troubled land".)

O God of mountains

O God who created mountains
Shaped valleys with his hand
Watches dassies at their play
And yet sees all of life unfold

Your voice is in the cry of a newborn
In the playing of children
The sigh of a mother
The voice of a father

From the first breath to the last
The wind in the peaks to the ocean spray
I've found you in the scudding clouds,
The forests
The timid disas hidden near streams.

The mountains are your cathedral
The skies your glory
The stars your crown

And I - I have walked on the mountains
Seen you in their beauty and harshness
God of this amazing creation

I have loved finding

Endless places we've explored
Fires we've shared and stars we've counted
Through all of life and now to beyond

I hear a call to come higher up, and further in.

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This poem was written for and is dedicated to John Freislich, lover of mountains, valleys and streams - died Sept 10, 2008. John died of a brain tumour about 2 months after I gave him this poem. He was a most amazing man and you can meet him at http://mybraintumour.blogspot.com/

Harassed mom

If I have to smack your bum

One more time, my little hum

I will lose it to the stars

‘cos you’re aiming at Jupiter and Mars...

Another whine, another yell

I simply cannot take the hell

Of “I don’t want it” or “No, not now”

When it’s simply easier to do it somehow.

The food is not poisoned, it’s actually quite nice

Even if you won’t taste the smallest slice

And then there’s demands for VID-E-ROES!

Sorry, my dears, you’re not being heroes.

‘Cos food must be finished and plates put in the sink

Don’t even THINK of raising a stink!

Rules IS rules in my house – sorry to say

When you obey, we all love to play.

(Well, mostly.This was one of those days in 2011.)

Rushing

Whirling madness
Craziness, busy-ness ...
Such a rush of galloping hooves
Demanding voices, clattering, clamouring, noising, shouting

And then you speak
And the silence touches my soul
Sparks alive my covered spirit
And life emerges from the ashes of my busy life

Your finger dusts the dirt
And life is cleansed

O God - may that which rises from the ashes
Be clean, be pure, be new
May it walk brave
Let it live true

K - 02/11/1998