Saturday 16 December 2017

Cross

                         CROSS
On a night when something beautiful died,
I glanced at the large wooden cross
Above our fire
It reminded me of somewhere You'd been,
On a day when something beautiful died.

The cross was hard, awkward, unyielding
Like everything else in that moment
But I had to cling to it maybe somehow
I could be closer to You.

Your beauty had died, mine too
My grief burst
The wood melted
Warm and soft like a body
I embraced it, You embraced me
In the  sacrament of that moment
In the cross You ask us all to bear.
     
               Wilf Dec 2017

Tuesday 12 December 2017

Four Short Poems

                            VESSEL
Dirty earth
Mixed with blood
Kneaded and spun, fired and dipped and fired
And then
A pot to hold the molten gold
And pour the blood
On to dirty earth

                            Wilf Dec 2017


                 ANSWERED PRAYER
I wrote you a letter.
I didn't know your name,
And I had no  words but I wrote anyway.
I didn't know where you lived  
So I slid it in a blank envelope
Which somehow found your door


I didn't think You knew I was here
Or there
    or anywhere or,..
        or any body
But in the days that followed
The answer came, right here,
To me.
                    Wilf Dec 2017


         MINUTES
You turn the minutes,
These empty minutes
Into moments,
These moments
Into a life,
A life into
Our life
And all that life has come to be
Comes to be in this moment
In You
                          Wilf Dec 2017


              PICKING GRAPES IN TIME OF WAR

It seems frivolous to be doing this now
When people are fighting and dying
In a desert war in the Midlands
But these grapes dried under the high sun
Are for the weary soldiers,

It seems frivolous to be treading grapes
In this time
When the poor are being crushed.
But the feet that tread this fruit
Are the feet that have trod the path:
And wine gladdens the heart


                Wilf Dec 2017