If only you had been alert to my commandments.
Your happiness would have been like a river.
It’s not alertness that is my problem, it’s my contrary sentiments.
It’s because my faith is the merest sliver.

I look at Sickert’s painting, L’Ennui.
Two figures not looking at each other.
It’s boredom and apathy that I see.
Effort, communication and love, all too much of a bother.

How often do I sit in my comfortable armchair.
Musing on the present, turning my back on eternity.
When really everything is so clear.
Through that window casting its light on me is God’s city.

But deep down I know this me is not really I.
The real me is somewhere else, I just have to look with an inner eye.