Light Filtering Through

                                                Light Filtering Through

Light filtering

Through

Autumn sky and leaves

Through

Cobwebby rain stained windows

Is still

Light

The voice of a friend

Through

The rattle of the market

Through

The haggling of strangers

The voice

Made   sweeter

God’s   breath

Through

You with all your......

Through

You

God’s breath  smelling of you

Is still God’s breath

                                                          Wilf 12/2014

Swan in Moonlight

Birthed of the roaring golden womb,
Alighting on the moon's cool seas
And a swift silent leap to pour
Upon the river close to me.

The swan swam and looked to know
The pearl white light in which she moved and ruled
To me she seemed to be that light embodied 
Winged and white,
Leaving flakes to shimmer on the river
As she passed quietly through.

She was a herald, a mystic sign.

As I looked upon her I saw another river:
All of life cold and dark
With friendship, light embodied,  Swimming through
Defiant.                                                    Wilf 09/2014

Memories

In the stillness of the nursery
Magic midnight hold her breath and smiles 
As cupboard doors creak,
Out tumbles a hoard of little soldiers
Small toys but jumping,twitching grinning silly
Mischief's life dances in the tin and wood and lead.

Peevish prods and pinches
Round and round they wheel
Twisting what is real,"We played this game with you remember,remember how it feels?"
Midnight's magic never ends
Nor do the dancers stop to catch their breath,
Until juice from a darker hour's fruit
Drips upon the spell
And all is well.
The tired soul can breath, healed
And sinking to sleep will rise tomorrow 
As a conqueror.
                                                Wilf 1991

The North sea as a type of God-Two views

Flamborough Head stands proud
Cliffs that defy the Almighty
Cold clean unscalable hardness,
He is unconquered
and mocks the fling and hurl
Of wave worn wave borne rocks.
Defiant.His horn held high
Warning the ships of the sea,
"Do not venture close,my bones lie hidden 
Beneath the waves and I will scrape out your heart".

Barmston beach by contrast is demure and yielding
Her sandy gravel cliffs, low and homely
Present a shy freckled face to the sea.
Shy,yet brave to face onslaughts 
And be dragged away.
Everything built here will fall
The very land be lapped and lashed away,
But I would rather be like her.

Though everything topple,make Your inroads Lord
Let me be as a bay,tear me down,
Wrap me round with ocean and let Your waves
Bring ships to harbour in me.
                                              Wilf1996

The mad and the Wild

The mad mane
Lashing and thrashing
With a million briney whips
Pounding and grinding with foaming fists
Wild white water tearing down the ramparts and cliffs,
        Oh God the sea is like a pool
        Compared to You
        I look upon Your waves with dread
        But if they break upon my soul
        Let me be quickly sped
        To the shoals
        Sheltered in Your heart's sea bed.

Wild wild wind
Who can tame Your breathless pace
Or match Your madcap motion's race?  
A devastating dance of strange and dangerous grace,

My God the storm is like a summer breeze
Compared to You,
Who is not felled before Your blast?
But let me be a tiny seed
Borne upon Your breath and blown at last
To grow amidst the meadows of Your forest.

                                                           Wilf 1996 

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

Night Bane

I do not care if the pain continues,
Or if the darkness does not part,
All I want is Someone
To wrap an arm around my heart.

I am in desperate need of answers,
But for the moment they can wait.
Simply come and be with me 
In this suffocating night.

I need to shed so many tears,
But the grief is somehow tied,
Will You come and weep in me
Till I am man enough to cry.
                                                Wilf 07/1998

The Bride and the Robe

The bride's works of love live on
As her robe in heaven is spun
In pure plaited light,fold upon fold
The living form of her poured out soul
Her body and robe are one.

The robe veils nothing but displays
Her fiery light in glowing waves
The secrets that virginity has held
Now fix God's gaze within their spell
As they burn with pure alluring blaze.
                                                           Wilf 08/1998 

The Moment

 1                          
The flame came down, encountering the lily
And both were held in awe,
Purity marveling at purity;
The bearer of the news,
The bearer of the word
Trembling on the edge of the moment
When the seed of God would tip into our world
In the heart of a pure girl's womb.
2                        
When the 'brave' braced back bends braver
And the knee knows now to kneel,
The conquered king is caught from his castle
Hauled,galled,called to the hallowed gallows
Head held high.
Clawing,gnawing,mauling;
Part lamb,beast and man;
And tears turn fears to trembling trust.
In this chaos of contrition
The seed slips silently in
And all heaven exults.
3
Still is the newborn earth
And heaven here is hushed
No faintest breath disturbs the air
Through which the nubile figures move.
If Divinity can look with awe 
Then this is the moment
For the Groom has locked his gaze 
Upon His bride.
She whom He has drawn from the beginning
Draws close and ever closer
Time and eternity meet as so many times before
Parts of this one eternal moment
The first touch
Consummation.
                                          Wilf 10/1998 

Adult's End

Ah those high heady heartbrimming days
When wonder met with wonders at every gaze
And the Fair Folk winked and laughed among sunlit trees
Dancing in the spirals of autumn leaves

          They said things would change
          When I became a man.

The change crept upon me like a slow
But certain winter
The cold winds aged me beyond my years
Where were the Fair Folk now?
Walled out of my world by reason
I missed them so,but more
I missed the world in which they lived
And the me who saw them there
So this was adulthood?
This is being a man?

Life was hard with so much understanding
All neatly boxed
My heart just a piston
But filled with a strange ache
Which ached and ached and ached
Throughout that long grey land.

Lately I thought I saw a face
Grinning in the trees,
Then a commotion rattling the leaves
Something mischevious was beckoning to me
More and more it was all around
Then I realised the truth,He
Who I supposed dwelt solely
Upon some transcendent shore,
Someone much fairer than the fair folk
Had smiled down in a thousand summers,
Was sparkling in each raindrop,
His grief in every tear.
He was bursting out of His creation 
Eager for me.

So I finally took His hand
And at last I learned to play
I took my first steps as a man
As I became a child again that day.
                                                      Wilf 10/1998  

Blue and Gold

Those who sang the blues the best
Were always down at heel
Dressed in shabby suits
Fondling a cheap guitar and bleeding strings
They sang tortured triumph
With gravel and diamonds in their throat

As for me I'm shabby too
My soul has holes
And barely fits
Sometimes it doesn't keep out the cold
I too sing my song

I feel afraid at times 
To look the bluesless conquerors in the eye
(The sleek untested babies of our western faith or
Those more valliant than I)
But when I consider who You are,Man of sorrows
And where you take your friends
I allow myself a smile
Which I hope is without pride
For when I am in heaven
With those of noble countenance
I shall meet their glance
Knowing
That the song they sang in full 
I sang in part and our joy is one
                                                   Wilf 03/1999 

Because

The men who pried the sky saw nothing
But the stars still shivered.
There was no earthquake down below
But the rocks quietly groaned.
There was no tangible disaster,
Though some of the devout,the tender ones
Were bowed down rather  more
With pity and divine alarm,
But it was just another day
And just another tear that fell.
                                                     Wilf 03/1999

Who Killed the Lamb?

Did an angry face begin to smile?
As the fleece was pierced and flayed?
Where were the mines from which was dug?
The iron for the blade?
And by whose art was all this formed?
In those uncreated days?

Before the hoards of people stood
Making war against the lamb
The creative sacrifice was made
By the weeping Father's hand
                                               Wilf 06/1999

Give me a Joy

Give me a joy
That does not out sing
The shouts and cries of the suffering.

Give me a smile
That does not shame
The wringing brow of mortal pain.

Give me a freedom
That does not forget
The backward gaze to the prisoner's net

Then I will be a lover
With riches and refuge
For all others
                                            Wilf 09/1999

A Heart of Tides

Upon this heart's frail bed
There are tides that rise and fall,
Known and unknown,common and yet
If I am not to be destroyed
By this heaving inner mass
Give me friends with the shoulders of God
To bear this with me.
                                Wilf 10/1999  

Anawim

A need so great
It would empty any heart
But God's.
A love so small
A mite, enriching the heart of God
As only undivided treasure can.

There

Here in the house where everyone lives
But no one ever goes,crowded
With sad hermits
Guarding the secrets that everyone knows
Here a forced smile and a joke is all it takes
To forge the spell of a thousand years
The forced fond forgetting,

But  the spell begins to break
When a solitary's tear is shed
The tear becomes becomes a pool of silver
The pool,an angry river rush 
That bursts its banks and sweeps and hurls 
The house away
Leaving all its family
Blinking in the sunlight there
                                            Wilf 10/1999

Blue

Blue,the colour of night not quite
Closed in,fading images taunting
Blue,the colour of a soul not yet free
Shadows and memories haunting.

Blue,the colour I become under your Fatherly hand,
Sometimes black and blue,
Pride making its miserable stand
Blue,seeing the ways I choose have been denied by You.

God is light
Every colour merged into invisible majesty
Then,is blue somewhere in Your heart?
And do You understand? Jesus man of sorrows
Man of blue.
But You are also red
Bright with a passion neither You nor we could contain  
Between our blue and Your red
Are all the colours of the rainbow
The insides of your heart displayed
Covenant.

Green,that would be my chosen colour
Alive and fresh,overrun with the spirit's succulent verdure
Green,tough and humble in the rough and tumble
Like the grass of the field trodden but not crushed
Food and beautiful growing everywhere.

"Blue and green should never be seen",that's right
Where there's blue there's not much life
But red in blue is purple the colour of kings
And here with You in the blue
Something beautiful is blossoming in the night

                                                                       Wilf 11/1999  

Hermione Danced

Hermione was possessed of particular grace,and whilst her beauty was not in the classic mould, it was very striking.Her race were well renowned as philosophers and artists.You could sense the depth of their thought by their unhurried movements;somehow serenity of mind was expressed in all they did.
                                    This was especially true of Hermione who was a dancer.Tonight was a very special night for her.When a member of her race came of age as Hermione had recently done,the great Feast of Entry would be held.The high point of this feast was called the Threshold Step.This was some work of creative inspiration by the one on the threshold of adult life,something that would express their love and intended devotion to the Great Creator.
                                                                       Hermione had danced since she was small,it had always been most engaging and it was something she had loved very much.But as she made her way slowly through the meadow to the feasting place she was afraid.
                                              She was not perturbed by the presence of her very large family,nor even by the solemnity of the moment.It was more to do with her great love for God, she felt that she could never really express this nor the wonder of the One she loved, however well she danced.But she had to do it and she had practiced every move and sequence relentlessly,now she must ensure that she didn't forget them.
                                  The more she thought about the dance the more fretful she became,and when she thought of the One for whom she would be dancing,her Creator,her heart was overwhelmed and she forgot everything.This continued all the way to the edge of the woods where her family and friends greeted her,and by the time the feast began and the music started her mind was a complete blank as far as dancing was concerned.
                                                  There was some time before she was to dance and she began to gaze around.The lustre of the grass,the elegance of the flowers,the might of the trees,they all seemed different this evening,they spoke in some new way of the One she loved,everything was so strong and beautiful.She was nudged out of her evening daydream by a relative,it was time.
                                                      The music had changed,she had often heard it,now it was her turn.She made her way slowly to the centre,realising that she she could not perform what she had prepared.
                                                               The moon was rising,the archer of the sky,the trees lifted high their boughs,a flight of dark geese flew towards the sunset.The trees,everywhere the trees,they had always fascinated Hermione,she could never climb one,but how she envied the way they reached up to the heavens ,to God.With that thought in mind she arched her back and rose up balancing perfectly on one tiny point, she was not even aware of what she had done,but quite naturally she had performed a move so simple,so very difficult and so perfect that the gathered throng gasped.Here was the very essence of her soul expressed in reaching up to God.No one who saw it ever forgot.The doves who were providing the music at this point could hardly continue,her relatives looked on,pondering the wonder of what they saw.Hermione the humble dancer standing upright? Standing.swaying gracefully,playing sometimes with,and then against the gentle breeze,the lustre of her sleek skin like wet jet in the moonlight.
                Everyone saw this remarkable feat, this reaching up to touch God.But more remarkable was the kiss of God which no one saw planted in the heart of a humble slug called Hermione.  
                                 Wilf 12/1999                   

The call of Brokenheart

Brokenheart You call one thing from us,
Nothing that the least could lack
Nor the greatest spare.
You simply want our all,
Broken and poured out as a waterfall,
Or countless tiny streams dancing down 
The mountainside.
Martyrdom or living sacrifice it is the same
The river of our love is Your desire.

So take this offering, 
It is small and often trembles,
It may never be a waterfall,
But it is a trickle flowing out to you
From the broken ground of my being,
And it will become a river,

If I can be thus emptied
For You 
Then I shall not be ashamed 
At the end 
To stand with Martyrs
On the shining shore.
                                       Wilf     12/1999

Secret Face

The voice of the wise said,
'Go into the secret place
And there you will find 
The secret face'

So the voice of the chattering mind
Began to state its anxious case,
'Whose face?Whose face?
God's or mine?
Will show in that hidden place?'

And where is the place?
Without or within?
What place? what face?
Where is its dwelling

'Go into the secret place
And there you will find 
The secret face'.
                                      Wilf   01/2000

These Thoughts

                        These thoughts;
                        Jumbled and stunned  
                        By collisions in my head,
                        Spinning into a rope of words
                        Thrown out in panic's confusion,
                        Have coiled themselves
                        Safely
                        Around your heart.
                        For the way is not found
                        By careful words.
                                                   Wilf 01/2000 

The tale of a nail

There was a mystery about that first moment of creation, something that caused us to linger,to look back into the uncreated darkness;but the rush and race of life was on,the wild mating of molecules.Life,harsh and beautiful,neither cruel nor kind;elements fusing and breaking
unstoppable,gorged with nascent fire.
                                                          We had flowed in the earth from the beginning,a river of iron slowly setting in beds of rock.There we rested in the heart of the warm earth,and the music of an innocent creation was our song.
                                                          But a day came when all that changed,pain welled up through creation like a great wave,and the music ached with a strange dissonance.
                                                          Many circles later I was mined by slaves,brave broken men and women,who wept in their sleep under the cold stars.By day they groaned under loads too heavy for human hands,they groaned under 
the whip,and they groaned as they dragged me up into the sunlight with bloody hands.
                                         It was nothing to me to be forged in the great heat of a furnace by the hands of artisans.The affairs of men do not touch us even though we are in their power,and although it was through them that we learned pain,little did I know how much I would see of that pain as I was carried in the soldier's pouch to the hill.
                                                                    Suddenly many eyes were upon me,angry hateful full of burning lust and the earth seemed strangely crowded
                                                        The hammer fell.It seemed to have descended a vast distance down through the heavens.It was wielded by a man but it hit me like a meteor,I ripped into his flesh and felt as though I bored for millions of miles before biting into the wood.The elements trembled ,space shook and would have collapsed had  something not restrained it.Even time itself shuddered to contain such a moment,but I held firm.
                                                           The hand gripped me and I knew;I remembered searching the uncreated darkness,looking to see what can not be seen and here somehow it held me in the agony of love.
                                                              From its great hidden depths welled up a river of liquid ruby,each drop more precious than a galaxy of stars,than all the races of men and angels,and yet here was a ocean,and still I held.

I realised that the hand I held was holding all creation in its palm and the sea of blood flooded every part right to its endless edge,and every moment of memory and hope were washed.It was as if the travail under which all creation groaned was being drawn away,but in some mysterious way
it remained.Amidst a shivering world two things were steady;the hand and the nail.
                                            When the darkness came something began to happen which I can not understand,and although I describe it in my way,it is no explanation.It was clear that I was supporting far more than a man in his dying 
struggle,and more than a betrayed creator.Something beyond the elements coming from the darkness,was pouring into him.I felt its deadly cold but he did not die.This went on until he uttered a terrible yelp of a cry,then we began the descent.
                 It was as if we shrank,becoming ever and ever smaller,down and down travelling on beyond the tiniest specks of matter,into the beyond which is within the heart of everything.Into the smallness which has no limit except to him who made it.He carried the darkness down and down,beyond all things until the darkness itself was no more.And the flood had engulfed everything from the greatest to the smallest.
                                      We were on the hill again,he uttered his final cry and was dead.Soon he was taken away,and I was discarded.The whole world seemed discarded that day as night fell and I began to rust in the dew.
      Strange things happened over the next few days.There were sounds of dismay,and then of laughter; of war's joy and triumph.There tears and sighs,rumblings and shakings;all coming from somewhere beyond this world and passing through it barely noticed.Then all was quiet and in the moments before dawn I saw a vision of a great hand hidden in darkness unfurling the new born stars,I saw the hands of anguished people reaching up to heaven,and the hands of slaves hanging down hopelessly.Then a wonderful thing happened,the mutilated music of creation suddenly became beautifuly harmonious;the pain of nature's fractured song was lifted into a grand mysterious harmony.In that moment timeless and swift, the hands were engulfed in one great hand,in which there was a wound;the wound that I had made,in the hand that I had held.Then I understood.
                                                                                I am rusted away,washed by the rains,blown by the winds,I am countless unseen grains.Rust.The travail of nature's song continues but hope dances in among it and one day the mysterious anthem will return for ever.
                                                           Wilf 04/2000  

Song for Calebs

Blue for sailors 
Blue for boys
Blue for waves and sky.

                         And Caleb was a sailor
                         Looking out to sea
                         Waiting for his little ship
                         To sail to eternity.

We all dwell upon a coast
Within reach of land and sea
And explore the land a little
In accord with our bravery,

But waves are never far from us
Who dwell in this narrow land
Whether we live upon the rock
Or exist upon the sand.

But only those who love the rock
Know truly how to sail
And children may reach the farthest shore
Whilst the proud and mighty fail
   
                        And Caleb was a sailor
                        Looking to the sky
                                                          Wilf 10/2002

Caleb was a little boy in our church who was born with a condition that affected his heart lungs and gut.The fact that he lived for 2 years was a miracle.