Sonnet

The waves of death rose about me.
The pains of the netherworld surrounded me.
To the far horizon stretches an implacable sea.
As far as I can see.

But that at least is in this world.
Below the horizon lies something even more fearful.
It is death, my sail finally furled.
I cannot avoid it however careful.

The young fear disappointment in love or career.
We older ones do not not lament.
We know anyway the end is near.
Soon we will take down our threadbare tent.

But as just below the real horizon is the rest of the world we cannot see.
So after death will come the calm after this turbulent sea.

Haiku

Below horizon
No world but death is waiting
And perhaps some calm

Sonnet

When your days are ended and you are laid to rest with your ancestors.
I will preserve the offspring of your body after you.
Our own predecessors were our investors.
And at our end we will be too.

I was looking at the old White Mulberry Tree in St James Park.
Its ancient trunk potted with crown gall disease and held up with a stake.
Tired and gnarled was its bark.
How long had it stared placidly at the lake.

Impervious to all the great history it had witnessed.
The Kings and Queens walking by.
By time only and not by regret or ambition was it stressed.
Held by no man in any subservient tie.

Yes it is only a tree.
But it is free.

Haiku

The Mulberry Tree
Ancient placid and free
tree but what am I

Sonnet

They forgot the God who was their saviour.
Who had done such great things in Egypt.
All eyes were on the idol’s grandeur.
Their attention to truth was not gripped.

But his love for us has no pre-conditions.
His forgiveness is unconditional.
We do not need to repent or make admissions.
We can be the ever returning prodigal.

Forgiveness is not just about justice.
The forgiven may not even know that this ends this part of their history.
But forgiveness releases, it just says trust us.
It breaks the chain of misery.

But why then do I find it so hard to forgive another’s sin.
Because I am not a father to all, only my own children, but he is, to all he is kin.

Haiku

Forgive others is
hard I am not their father
But he is to all

Sonnet

The harvest is rich.
But the labourers are few.
How can we search out our niche.
How do we find our due.

In Spitzweg’s painting the sky is without feature, vast, taking over half the canvass.
These are like the Eastern flat lands I know so well.
Yet here is a church rising from the plain not some pylon mast.
You can almost hear the toiling Angelus bell.

Here is a calm procession of nuns and children.
A soldier and his love, Farmers resting by the side of the road.
No hectic movement, here you can only have walked or ridden.
Yet a rich harvest is bestowed.

Is the message that hope can come in slowness.
And not necessarily in hastiness.

Haiku

Hope comes in slowness
Not always in hastiness
And harvest comes in

Sonnet

Do you want to be well again.
While I am still on the way , someone else gets there before me.
Do we really want to cast off our binding chain.
Our own will is the key.

Our own pool of Bethzatha is never far away.
Why do we always wait for someone else to put us in.
Why do we make excuses, we could make the effort, why don’t we say.
No one else stops us, it is only our own will and sin.

We are paralysed not physically but with inner fear.
It is our mind not our body that is blind and lame.
Others are to blame, thus we cast a lonely tear.
We are not at fault, look at those others, we are not the same.

We could get up and walk now with our metaphorical bag for sleeping.
But we end up not walking towards the light but sideways creeping.

Haiku

Our goal is not far
We could get up and walk there
Our own fear stops us

Sonnet

To die at the age of a hundred will be to die young.
Not to live to be a hundred will be a sign of the curse.
What comes most often to our tongue.
Ourselves, our possessions, our hopes, but they all end up in a hearse.

I was day dreaming about what we wanted, as well as to be somebody.
We like to think we will live on and on to a very great age.
But to most, this is loneliness and extreme frailty in mind and body.
And wisdom, what does it really achieve to be an all-too-temporary sage.

And possessions.
What is a delightful buy is often a grateful sell.
Accomplishments are just passing, often mediocre impressions.
So what from all this can we tell.

That the greatest pleasure is both free and the simplest.
It is to hold your granddaughter’s hand in yours, not much else stands the test.

Haiku

The Greatest pleasure
To hold your granddaughter’s hand
In your own old hand

Sonnet

Men have shown they prefer darkness.
To the light.
I was overwhelmed with tiredness.
I dreamt and something new was opened to my sight.

I was a passenger in a car, the past dismissed, and from it came no survivor.
Absorbed in my own thoughts, a long dreary list.
Only at the end, when it was too late did I recognise that here was no cab driver.
Dead for 26 years yet every detail of his dear face so clear, it was my father so missed.

Full of regret and still dreaming, I came to a bookshop.
Strangely open in lockdown, piled high inside and out with every kind of book.
There was an old lady there who showed me two wartime ID cards, I let them drop.
The writing was faded, only photos remained, I didn’t even bother to look.

The past is a bottomless ocean of regrets.
Do not let it go, these are holy assets.

Haiku

The past is truly
An ocean of regrets
Do not let it go

Sonnet

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.
But the man who humbles himself will be exalted.
In the end our false humility, Latin humus, is always rumbled.
Into pride’s yeast malted.

Homo, man comes from the Latin, humus, earth.
Homo sapiens is earth that knows it it is alive and sound.
To be humble is to be down to earth.
Adam, the first man is made out of Admah, Hebrew for ground.

I was earth.
When I was born, I became earth that knew.
When we die, we will be earth that is exalted and in a safe berth.
Thus from dust we came and to dust we will return, but we grew.

Whatever we think, we will always will and should be humble, humus.
It is and always was thus.

Haiku

We came from just earth
Man is humus, aware earth
Homo Sapiens

(Thanks to Abbot Christopher Jamison in his book ‘Finding Sanctuary’ for some of the ideas that inspired this.)

Sonnet

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul.
And, found in the New not Old Testament, with all your mind.
We ask ourselves what is the essence of all this toil.
Is it to have faith, to understand or just be kind.

But remember that it is the mind that must be used, look around.
Our brain, that amazing creation of one hundred billion neurone cells.
As many as the stars in all the Milky Way that can be found.
So accept this abundant creation, follow science and ring out the bells.

I never have got my head around this.
How can God, one intelligence create all these wonders now and then.
I suppose the answer is not to worry, just accept bliss.
It’s beyond our Ken.

But one thing is certain, be rational.
Accept science as well as faith and why not be a little international.

Haiku

Be rational
Accept science with faith too
And also the world

Sonnet

O that today you would listen to his voice.
Harden not your hearts.
Everything is our choice.
We can avoid worrying about stings and darts.

I dreamt that I saw my ego as a great pile of detritus .
I could see it physically mounting up.
Money, property, memories, exciting and tedious.
Loves, family, dislikes, ambition, hopes, and fears filling my cup.

In the dream this pile got bigger and bigger.
Then I saw it for what it really was.
Microscopic neurones getting smaller and smaller.
Sucked into death’s relentless jaws.

The ego in reality is nothing.
Chemical signals and electrical impulses, not even something.

Haiku

Ego is nothing
A few neurones come and gone
Barely then something

Sonnet

Schooled through Lenten observance.
And nourished by your word.
How to follow this ordinance.
Was ever something stirred.

How I fail in restraint and fall into fault.
I don’t really want to give anything up.
Alcohol, not being cross, all too difficult.
Not even something modest to sup.

How about trying to do something positive.
A bit of alms giving perhaps.
Or trying not to be negative.
And then after a day I lapse.

Perhaps a thought is enough.
It’s all a bit ready and a bit rough.

Haiku

What to give up now
Or better to do something
I do so little

Sonnet

Not seven times I tell you.
But seventy-seven times.
Forgiveness is the one thing we fear to pursue.
These are not our natural lines.

It’s worse if you try and do it; it certainly doesn’t come lightly to the touch.
It reminds you of what the person did to you.
But we ourselves have been forgiven so much.
Better maybe to dwell on that gift too.

In Carl Spitzweg’s painting, the poor poet sits alone, seemingly lame.
Disconsolate unread.
Not for him, written on the book’s binding, gradus ad parnassum, the height of fame.
Nothing much of him can be said.

But perhaps one thing, he forgives and does not resent the fire’s and his dying flame.
Because the pleasure is in creation and writing not in fame.

Haiku

Forgiving matters
The pleasure is creating
Not then in just fame

Sonnet

Send forth your light.
And your truth.
Open my eyes to my inward sight.
Return me to the certainties of my youth.

I stood in our kitchen watching her pottering outside.
Weeding, talking to herself and leaf brushing.
Suddenly resistant to fortune’s tide.
My whole heart was with love bursting.

I am reading Lampedusa’s The Leopard.
How I relate to its mournful regrets at time passing.
To be conservatively inclined is perhaps just to be a mournful retard.
We mourn all that is lost with age advancing.

But one thing need not pass with a little help from above.
And that is love.

Haiku

One thing passes not
With some help from up above
And that is true love

Sonnet

The sparrow finds a home.
And the swallow a nest for her young.
All wisdom is contained in nature’s tome.
Unconscious goodness in the throat of a bird is sung.

The tractor was ploughing and drilling the field.
All was in order with straight lines marked.
But a great disorderly flock of gulls followed and wheeled.
All careful efforts of man unmarked.

Could our intelligence be less than an ant’s; we worship our ego and our life.
But minutes after we die, all electrical currents in the brain cease.
All memories, all hope and fears, cut away utterly with bloodless knife.
No freehold for us, only an all too temporary non renewable lease.

But hopefully our crumbling temple though destroyed.
Will after a few days, in glory and in other form, be restored.

Haiku

Our temple destroyed
Then after three days restored
In greater glory

Sonnet

The flock that is your heritage.
With meadow land all around.
We wilt under the demanding adding inbox, yet forget what stays from age to age.
What is rooted in timeless nature is truly sound.

Yesterday we lit a bonfire on the garden.
The smoke rose, the great mound of old twigs dissolved.
I sat in the cool spring day, the fire was intense, golden.
Time just was, who cares that no problems had been solved.

And that vast pile of garden rubbish.
Reduced to a clean white circle of ash.
So our own bodies and life passes and will diminish.
Cleaned, washed, pampered and burnished, then so much rotting trash.

But the cleansing bonfire was beautiful.
For what we have been, we always should be grateful.

Haiku

The cleansing bonfire
Golden beautiful then ash
Like our passing lives

Sonnet

It was the stone rejected by the builders.
That became the cornerstone.
Life entrances, yet also bewilders.
We shout for joy then inwardly groan.

We look back on our own life.
Youthful peaks of ambition and hope.
Descending into dark valleys full of difficulty and strife.
Now on a gentle downward undulating slope.

Best put it all in perspective, it is nothing beside the wonders of the universe.
Today I looked at the amazing Perseverance rover images of Mars.
Seemingly so close I could almost touch the rocks, a 3D picture in verse.
Yet these photos are taken so very far away, it seems half way to the stars.

So as I persevere in this quiet green valley of mine,
I think of the red Jezero crater and something half divine.

Haiku

Put in perspective
All life’s troubles up and down
Look at Mars’ surface

Sonnet

He is like a tree by the waterside.
That thrusts its roots to the stream.
Our life flows in and ebbs out like the tide.
Nothing is quite like as it would seem.

Are we really like the rich man.
Ignoring poor Lazarus at our gate.
Surely it’s not as if we’ve done anything wrong, it’s just he was beneath our scan.
And our eyes were opened too late.

But it’s true by then it all be no use warning others.
After all when alive we paid no heed to any warning.
Despite the evidence from our betters.
I suppose we were past caring.

But if we put trust in other than man.
We might keep our roots by the stream during our span.

Haiku

Trust other than man
Might keep our roots by the stream
During our long span

Roots dig by water
The stream flows gently by it
Waters its great age

Sonnet

Make haste and come to my help.
O Lord, my strong salvation.
As much as we try, it’s just not enough, self-help.
We can’t do this on our own, I think I know my station.

I’m certainly not worthy.
For Him to enter under my roof.
But I plod on wearily
I sometimes think of myself as an incompetent sleuth.

Always trying to work out what is the truth.
But the answer always eludes me.
It’s like a kind of persistent sore tooth.
The more I try the less I see.

So perhaps the answer is to relax and leave the door open, not worrying about virtue or sin.
And He might just come in.

Haiku

Answer, just relax
Leave the door open and He
comes under my roof

Sonnet

Everything they do.
Is done to attract attention.
They twisted as the wind blew.
To avoid any tension.

But am I the same.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything.
Make no claim.
To no faith or practice cling.

But surely if you bear witness.
You don’t need to set yourself on a pedestal.
Or plead innocence of any unfitness.
You can be instantly forgettable.

So I will continue to write.
However lacking in spiritual insight.

Haiku

Continue to write
However lacking in spirit
Or forgettable

Feast of Saint David

Sonnet

I am racing for the finish.
For the prize for which God calls us.
We will slowly diminish.
But we have had our chance, many have not even been allowed on life’s bus.

I dreamt that I saw, walking towards me, a great crowd of small children.
Then, in this dream, a horrible kind of remorselessly advancing ink obliterated them.
Now was their future completely hidden.
I was utterly shocked and numb.

These dear little ones taken in the womb.
Countless numbers of otherwise gorgeous babies, delightful toddlers.
I saw their approaching doom.
Hidden now for ever under death’s black waters.

But I saw salvation coming, not in a change of laws.
But in a change of heart in this great cause.

Haiku

Salvation comes
Not in a change of passing laws
But in change of heart

Sonnet

My heart has spoken.
Seek his face.
Hidden deep in our consciousness is his token.
As delicate a trace as lace.

The only thing that really does matter.
What happens after death to our consciousness.
In my dream I saw it as a definite object that cannot shatter.
In capable of descending into final darkness.

We are all children of light.
Everyone we meet in supermarket or street.
Is forever in his sight.
Yes, everyone however unlikely, we meet.

This picture of the conscious seemed utterly separate from my body.
Incapable of a permanent home in anything so shoddy.

Haiku

Consciousness is
Incapable of being
Always of the flesh

Sonnet (Psalm 130 KJV)

Beati immaculati, they are happy.
Whose life is blameless.
The swallow in her innocence wanders gladly.
Her marathon flight so courageous.

How I yearn for your arrival.
Completing your great pilgrimage from South Africa,
One day on the high wold I will know of your travel.
And hear your song so laughrica.

I doubt if I will see your slender stream lined body and forked tail.
You announce good times but half your numbers will not survive.
Here you will search for your insect snack, your holy grail.
Perhaps I will catch a sight of your determined crash dive.

How I ask do you navigate eight thousand miles.
And survive without complaint, like us, your trials.

Haiku

Come swallow arrive
Spring is here you say at last
Your song enthrals me

Sonnet

De Profundis.
Out of the depths have I called.
Out of mortal dark comes lasting bliss.
Out there is an open valley, yet this world is tightly walled.

My daughter’s thousand piece puzzle of Raphaello’s The School of Athens finally completed.
Yet two pieces are missing.
In life in the end we always are cheated.
On a turbulent sea drifting.

In the centre stands Plato.
For all his knowledge still deficient.
Yet the puzzle can still grow.
Despite failure hope is sufficient.

We feel alone, sitting in the dark looking at the sun’s rays.
Our fears yet to be resolved at the end of our days.

Haiku

We are all alone
In the dark seeking the Sun
Fears resolved by life

Sonnet

The one who knocks.
Will always have the door opened.
Life is a series of doors with impossible locks.
Life decays as soon as it is ripened.

We cannot undo these locks without aid.
But when we ask they just fall apart.
This soothing other worldly help is soothing healing jade.
This medicine penetrates our very heart.

I wonder why we seldom ask.
Do we forget, are we shy.
We know we have to do that to complete any task.
We just have to ourselves not lie.

We know that if our son asks, we give.
So why not ourselves ask and live.

Haiku

If our son asks us
We will always give to him
So ask our father

Sonnet

Go to Nineveh the great city.
And preach to them as I told you to.
On Jonah we should have pity.
What could he do.

We shy away also from the challenge.
We end up where we would rather not be.
Our fate is savage.
We refuse to see.

But after trial we muddle through.
We cannot resist the call.
We always of course knew.
Even if we have to crawl.

We will eventually pass on what we are told.
Everything else has long since been sold.

Haiku

We will now pass on
Everything we are once told
That is our duty