The nearness of You

                     THE NEARNESS OF YOU

You came so close
I could smell your last meal,
Wine and bread and wine
Body and blood carried on your breath.

You held me so close
I became strong,
You held me so tight
And I broke,

So, in Your arms safe at last.
A safety I do not yet understand,
This poor broken man-a sparrow
Fallen to earth
Felled by the wounded hand 
That now holds me.

                                                     Wilf Dec 2015

Crisis

                                       CRISIS

The frame is breaking

As the picture grows and changes

It cannot be contained any more

Where ever I look

At all I believe and love

There is a splintering

As something more alive breaks out

My oh so firm beliefs can only hint and guess

Life is tearing before me

Threads unravel, holes appear

And just beyond them

The Face of a man

                                                       WILF Nov 2015

After The Comma

         AFTER THE COMMA

After the comma, a space

space to breath before the next words

But they didn’t come

Silence and darkness of spirit came

Life

Empty, lonely, meaningless

This was the perspective from where I crouched

Wherever this place was

However near, however far from God

One thing was still sure,

Love

Strangely in my darkness

I could still love and be loved

The sight of a friend brought light, my only light

In those days of crying to an absent God

Whom I had no means of knowing

Even if He had been present

In time, from out of time came a silent word

And my spirit began to wake from its coma

Fluttering like a wounded bird

Surprised and happy to be alive, to life, to God

Starting again to fly,

                                                                             Wilf Oct 2015

                    This is the partner to 'Sometimes This', published earlier 

Mooon

 MOOON

 Mooon

   Cobwebby face and crab claws

    Penciled on pearl,

 Moooon

Your name rolls like a note

From a song far away

Calling to the waters 

Heaping up the waves,

 Mooon

You capture the sun in your pale face

And in that light it is clear

There is mystery everywhere 

Hidden histories in each face

Adventures around every half corner,

Moon

You show in black and white

That nothing is black and white. 

                                                                   Wilf Aug/2015  

Sometimes This

When we started out
You did everything.

When we started out 
I did everything
You said
Carried on the wings of your words,

Now
I seem to have left You behind
And You who are everywhere
Are nowhere to be found,
                                            Wilf June 2015
  
I have to finish this with a comma because although this happens it is not the last word.

A Strange Summer

       It was a strange summer
       We sang our songs to a helpless sun,
       Songs of love and rage,peace and anger;
       Longing and searching.
       Some believed the sun heard,
       But the answer came from somewhere else
       A startling light that revealed the pretensions
       Of the singing sixties,
       But also something deeper.

       That was the beginning
       Of a summer in a summer long ago.

       In the years that have followed
       This summer has become stranger,
       For in its ever growing light
       Eyes that see
       See that
       The God you know is more mysterious
       Than the God you do not know.
                                        
                                                                        WILF June 2015                                                                     

I read Your Theology Book

                       

I read your theology book

It said lots of things about God and people and Jesus.

The writing was all joined up,connected

By neat straight lines,

I understood it,

But I went away and wept.

I read your theology book,

It said lots of things about God and people and Jesus.

There was a great hole through the centre of the pages,

The writing just went round, pretending it wasn’t there.

I understood it,

But I went away lonely.

I read your theology  book ,

It said lots of things about God and people and Jesus

All smeared with your tears and sweat stains

And then mine

I’m not sure I understood

But I went away filled with kindness and wonder

               

                                                                                  WILF 06/03/2015