Night Sigh

My head was very busy,so I went to sit,
To sink down,commune with peace,with God,
About His silent slow affairs.
Looking at the sky,mute and still,then
A moving point of light
Which though it was a machine fitted well
Flying at its funny angle before the assembled stars
But then a clumsy flashing box of tricks came
Chuddering and clicking, clacking and whirring
Then another then a third,the sky is busy tonight,
Just like me.
But the  still silent stars are busier
Their insides are doing things that would make 
Even Mr.Einstein's head cheerfully go pop.
I wonder what a star sounds like up close?
(I never heard the planes by the way,but with all the lights
colour and funny shapes it was easy to imagine)

A busy sky
Stars serene bright powerful
Effortless effervescence
Light's splashing dash all the way to me.

I'm busy,
Silly cares and worries
Snares and hurries
Flying in a flurry
Against the ground of God's immensity
For somehow down inside is 
The Father of light,Sire of stars and sky
Whom no space can accommodate,
Smilingly patient with me as, with my mind's meccano
I make a ladder up to God?
A ship to sail the stars?
(Maybe in time we'll stretch out to one or two,but  
 why bother when the prophet said that one day late they'd fall out of heaven anyway)
And God comes to those who wait.

The sky is now clear of the clickers and clackers
And my toy cares are flung away 
So I can begin life's proper business, 
Hopelooking
                 Faithwaiting
                                  Lovegreeting 
                                                    The God who comes

                                                          Wilf 1996

Romance

A life lived without kisses,
Is like a land in drought.
So let me take You Lord
And yield my thirsty lips
Up to your sweet mouth.

My Lord I could not live
Without the embrace of a lover.
So let me melt before your strength,
Dying gladly in your arms
And I shall crave no other.

There must be consummation, 
Or I have lived in vain.
Your seed must clasp this aching womb
Your nature and your children born
To perpetuate our name.
                                         Wilf 09/1997

I ought to explain that I am committed to life long celibacy

The Virgin's Kisses

I have held many men,it being my trade.
Yet,I have never really held a man.
With them it is generally dull,rarely passionate
More rarely repulsive,
I cope.
But this man he is so very different
I am not coping at all.

His feet, they are filthy!
Are there no slaves here?
That pharisee has plenty.

What is this overwhelming swell?
My heart is being pulled out,
I have not wept for years,
Not since.....

How many men have I kissed?
Then, only with my body,but now my whole being
Kisses you.
My sorrow wraps itself around you
My tears streak your feet,
I who have been slave to so many-
I can at least be slave to you this once,
And wash your feet,
(They will drag me away presently)
I do not care,let me dry your feet with my hair
Let me kiss you again again again
(Surely they will drag me away)
Every kiss is so strangely welcomed
And beckons more, men have always wanted more
But not like this,I can not let you go
You draw from me that which I knew 
Was in every part me
But you draw it away,
Leaving what?
More than this you drag out this wave,
Flooding up in tears and kisses in reckless wild caresses. 
I have have gone too far,far beyond
The hateful gazes of this place
They can not see this twin tide 
Under which I break;
The suffocating shame and this crushing love.

I have taken the purity of many sons,
Drinking the forbidden cup,
But this man's purity has poured unbidden into me;
My shame and the poison washed out
I have not laughed for many years,
Not since......
But even that has gone,
I feel like a girl again.

Can someone like me
Regain what has been lost?
But I have been given his virginity,
I have been dragged away 
By him,to him
From myself to myself.
                                                          Wilf 09/1997

You can read the account of this in the Bible in Luke chapter 7 verses 36-50 

If God takes

If God takes beauty from our lives
It is to woo and wrench our eyes
Up and deeper into the heart of things
And away beyond, to look unblinking
Into the vast bright skies
Where His transcendent beauty lies.

                                                        Wilf 07/1997 

The broken vow

How are the mighty fallen!
Not by threats and shouts,
But a thousand whispers charm the soul
Wrapping their spell about-
Oaks whittled by a tiny blade
Splinter by splinter to the core-
Guessing nothing of the plot
They are mighty no  more.

How are the wise turned blind?
Their eyes are not gouged away
But Satan comes and drip by drip
The petrifying poison plays
Bathing with a gentle cruelty,
Each drop leaving its trace
Until the mind turned in upon itself
Is finally encased.

Not by might nor power
But by stealth
Are the wise and mighty felled
                                               Wilf 04/1998  

To a Sparrow*

You came like a bird blown from its nest;
 The years of bearing up had borne down on you
Crushing out your life breath.
The simple song we hear
No more from your frail lips,
Though its echo in our hearts means
We will not forget
We will not forget.

But fast fall the folds of time
On memory and emotion.
Fold upon fold of thick silent time
A few short days
But blanketing back your flight
Long long ago so it seems.

But there are hidden channels
Through which the flood of grief sweeps
Leaving me floundering and drowning
And even when it is gentler
Its waters bear me away to an empty wasteland
Into which I cry,
"What have I held in my heart?"
Finding the shape of your absence much greater
Wider,different.
"What have we held in our hands?
And where has it gone?"

She was a sparrow in our hands
Nestled away from the cold night
And the dark winter.
Looking up I see
She is a sparrow still, bearing up and far away
Through clear and fearless skies
                                               Wilf  07/1998          

 For my mother who went to be with the Lord on Tuesday 24th of June 1997  

Westering*

A friend came by night to say that you were calling out
Not knowing that really you were being called,
Called to the coast,that coast,
The western edge of all,between here and there.
Never has here seemed so near
Nor there so very far
My heart clinging to both, stretching 
Until it tore.

"Beyond all things is the sea",a wise man said,
Another that"All men must be sailors"
And be borne home or down
By the quick late relentless waves.

Those who face these waves unflinching
Are not the great and mighty
But those who live in love
Love is strength and beauty
Love is,
It is enough.
Those who love are are wise
And the waves hold no terror for them.

Grief comes in waves,dark unmindful
Encircling with its strange current and
Stranger still its comfort.
When it departs,strangest of all,
We grieve the loss of grief.

At the last breath the twentieth century fell
From your face.
And all that was timeless rose
The queenly features of a wise and noble race
The emanation of an everlasting soul
Everlasting but not everstaying
A short long journey now
Leaving an empty vessel
And the mocking of impotent foes.

Tonight,here and there met
In your simple heart
The last farewell unsaid,but understood
                                                             Wilf 1998 
   *For my mother who went to be with the Lord on Tuesday 24th of June 1997