Belfast how you’ve grown.
I was barely gone, on the scheme of things
But I barely know you and
Cannot put my finger on
What it is that makes me love you and yet
Feel still so far away.
Crowds are lonely even when there are
Familiar faces.
Faces drawn on bravely,
Drawn on a wall, peace walls.
Remember that night you were coming home late
And I stood up at the window in the door while you were putting your key in the lock?
You screamed blue murder and alarmed the neighbours
While I crossed my legs and we laughed til our bellies ached.
Remember that night I came home to an unexpected correspondance;
I fell to my knees at your door and wept?
You too wore out knees and tissues
While I grieved and doubted and raged, we sobbed til our throats were raw.
Remember I used to leave ends of old baguette on the kitchen counter
Like a little present unasked for but not entirely unexpected?
You’d smile and leave it there til I’d remember what I’d done
And we’d laugh and sit down to eat your diet soup without bread while the cat scratched at our jeans.
Remember we refused to get a television because we were oh so cultured darling,
And we put your PC in the corner out of the way, because there was nowhere else for it?
You’d casually switch it on, slip a DVD in the drive and with a sideward glance at my nod
We’d watch Friends back to back til bedtime.
Remembered vignettes of a shared life, a witnessed life, a different life;
Moving in, moving out, moving on…
Things change, memories make it worthwhile
But now I have to do all the dishes.
One thinks of candles at a time like this.
She had a go at both ends,
Grabbing life with both hands
Without wavering.
But it ends as it began:
With awe and wondering and tears,
Though this time prematurely.
(“Snuffed out”)
And this time the tears shine for what is lost,
Rather than for what is begun.
* * *
And here we were,
Arrogantly counting days
On widespread fingers,
Fretting about the wind;
When while what was cupped in our hands, is now
Immortalised in cyberspace.
Like a still-life painting on a gallery wall.
Was just thinking about this little poem today. I posted it a few years ago, but here it is again for your reading pleasure…
Life is big,
And I don’t get it.
And I’m kind of tired of not getting it.
That’s a little sentence, but really its big.
Very big.
A bit like life.
Its got to be some sort of haiku or some kind of named form? Don’t know, but it just came out this way and I kind of like that it encapsulates the simplicity with which we have to face our inability to know and control everything. It names the fatigue that comes from trying, but recognises that that’s okay.
“Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest” ~ Jesus
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom~ Anais Nin
When I listen to you live my throat feels dry.
My lips crack and dry up,
Thirsty for water that breathes deeply
Into my longing.
…
Lifting the cup to my mouth I hesitate,
Pursed lips tentatively gasping,
Drawing you in like hot tea that might blister my tongue
Rendering all else tasteless.
…
But I’d rather drink you down
(with
– no fear of getting burnt –
reckless
gulping
drafts)
Drink you down to the depths
Of sweet Spirit, and of Truth
And of grace.
The city awaits
Like a held breath and butterflies.
A longing of which
The anticipation is half the pleasure.
Familiar territory made strange by absence,
Laden with memory,
Exotic with change.
…
I will come again to your streets
Much-paced,
Long-lingered,
Where I will be free once more
To lay bare the secrets you once exhaled,
Whispered to a younger soul
Much lighter than mine.
…
My feet are no strangers to your streets,
Nor my eyes to your sight.
But who it was that took them there is a mystery
That I alone cannot fathom.
Change, when it is not height,
Can only be measured
By omniscience and eternity.
…
And so it is that I come;
An estranged wife,
A tourist in my own hometown,
A vagabond who dropped something
And came back to search.
There are glimpses of me
But only as I see her:
T-shirt in winter
And him:
Hairwaxed swagger
And them:
Wizened hands sticky,
Still fishing, still selling,
Unchanging.
…
Change, when it is not height,
Can only be measured
In light of the
Unchanging – not because it is simple,
But already taller than height,
Wider than width,
Deeper than depth –
Perfection.
…
And so I leave those streets behind.
There where the unknown meets the unseen,
The is meets what has been,
And what will be, will be…
I Am.
Like a kid who laughs at a joke he doesn’t understand,
I nod assent to your theological assumptions,
Secretly terrified of being discovered to be
too liberal,
too legalistic;
too smart,
too stupid;
too flaky,
too opinionated…
. . .
Too much like me and not enough like you.
1 Cor 13: 12-13 …We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. (MSG)
Life is big,
And I don’t get it.
And I’m kind of tired of not getting it.
That’s a little sentence, but really its big.
Very big.
A bit like life.
Your arrogance makes me uncomfortable
Not just because it is wrong, but because I am right.
Your certainty that you’ve got it makes my blood boil
Like milk seething quietly then
Exploding
Bursting boils of white which rapidly run out of steam
Leaving behind the sticky, wrinkly skin of my own certitude.
my small corner 