Sonnet

Do not babble as the pagans do.
Because they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard.
So is this prayer’s clue.
What distinguishes us from the herd.

The Our Father is so simple.
So powerful in its message.
In this great cacophony the merest dimple.
But we ask what does it presage.

It is this, he is there.
We acknowledge him to thrive.
We want to do his will here.
Give us just enough to survive.

Forgive us when we go wrong.
As we do to others all day long.

Haiku

Forgive us our wrong
As we forgive others’ wrongs
Again and again

Sonnet

Fresh and green are the pastures.
Where he gives me repose.
He protects us from all disasters.
For he knows.

I would never have had Peter’s certainty.
I am the constant doubter.
And will have a long wait for eternity.
Perhaps I should have been a more positive shouter.

Faith is a gift.
I am weak.
It is not given, am I cast adrift.
No, I can only seek.

I wish I could have said, You are the Christ.
Could I have been enticed.

Haiku

Wish I could have said
You are Christ, the son of God
Could I be enticed

Sonnet

I will establish my covenant.
No thing of the flesh will be swept away.
This will be our own government.
Whilst we pray.

We have only to create our own ark.
The waters can wash away our fears.
We need never fear the dark.
Or shed unnecessary tears.

If we we search his ways.
And seek his paths over the years.
We can be held in his gaze.
And avoid dread fears.

Remember his promise.
It is ours to miss.

Haiku

Remember promise
Covenants made for all time
And just for us now

Sonnet

Your light will rise in the darkness.
And your shadows become like noon.
We seek truth in stillness.
We will have the answer soon.

Home is down a narrowing lane.
Fast falls the gathering dusk.
How to baulk the curse of Cain.
Is life an empty husk.

Far away there is a light.
In the deep valley.
Barely visible in the night.
It is life’s tally.

I can only limp on.
For me a lamp has shone.

Haiku

I can only limp.
Onwards a lamp shines brightly
It is a tally.

Sonnet

Shout for all you are worth.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Be full of quiet mirth.
And do not unduly fret.

In the village church with distant country noises sounding.
Blackbird, far away, barely distinct singing.
Cows peacefully lowing, their shouting.
Tractor barely heard, warning beeping, reversing.

Wind gently sighing.
Chickens busily clucking.
Time just standing.
A branch brushes a window, nothing else moving.

Lent is for silence, not just denial.
To be alone is no trial.

Haiku

Lent is for silence
Not just lonely denial
Alone is no trial

Sonnet

Choose life then.
So that you and your predecessors may live.
Do not ask how or when.
Seek only to strive.

We are in a room.
Behind us a locked door, the past.
In front one unlocked, leading to our tomb.
What lies beyond that door, we will find out at last.

I was alone in the silence of the cell at San Marco.
Before me a fresco by Fra Angelico of the Resurrection.
Y a Marco se embarco.
And Marco embarked in translation.

We too soon will embark, that door ahead is ajar.
We need not fear, passing through this door will leave no scar.

Haiku

We soon will embark
That door ahead is ajar
Leaving then no scar

Sonnet

Turn to the Lord your God again.
For He is tenderness and compassion.
He is ready to remove all stain.
And free us from all life’s passion.

I am watching two programmes, one on the Ness of Brodgar excavation.
The other on Pluscarden Abbey in Scotland.
One three thousand years old but already concerned with spiritual contemplation.
The other dating from 1204, the last remaining medieval monastic island.

The film of the abbey is a meditation.
Silent save for the Divine Office chant.
The Gregorian chant is Joy’s foundation.
A delicately growing spring plant.

Today need not be one of sadness.
But of fond memories and gladness.

Haiku

No sadness today
Fond memories of joy found
Meditation

Sonnet

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great.
And that the thoughts in his heart fashioned nothing but wickedness.
But of travail came birth.
And no little brittleness.

People ask what to give up for Lent.
But why should religion be about denial.
So ask what already we have been sent.
Are we brought here for hope or trial.

We don’t have to give up something.
We can do something.
The burden need not be crushing.
We can put out the bunting.

So for Lent I will think on the joy of meditation.
An equally good way out of damnation.

Haiku

Meditation
It’s a good way to fend off
All damnation

Sonnet

Why does this generation demand a sign.
No sign will be given to this generation.
We imagine all will be fine.
All will be well with our nation.

We don’t even look for any augury.
And worry not that none has been sent to our contemporaries.
But there is a sign given by an old psaltery.
And this chant carries.

The problem lies now not with the Pharisees.
But with the don’t cares.
Not with those on their knees.
But those who forget the ancient seers.

But for those who can read.
The signs are still there to lead.

Haiku

For those who can read
The signs are still there to see
Just listen quietly

Sonnet

As long as the disease lasts.
He must live apart.
Wither our paths.
Where can we start.

Do we live with disease.
Or eradicate all risk.
Can we appreciate that we never will be totally at ease.
Only change is brisk.

I dreamt that my mother was waiting at the door.
Full of joy, I hurried forward.
Desperate for the dream to last more.
But to my sadness I woke up, from her I could hear no more word.

We resent all interruptions and the end.
But that is our fate and when we start to mend.

Haiku

Resent interruption
That is our fate’s vocation
Then we start to mend

Sonnet

To your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday.
No more than a watch in the night.
A small bird had flown into the church today.
I felt her trapped, I couldn’t let her out of my sight.

I opened the door into the light.
And waited patiently.
She flew away, free now and out of sight
Today I achieved one small thing and went away happily.

Why do we resent the men of lesser ability.
Who have been given so much more.
Why should it affect our tranquility.
Why the remaining sore.

To give life to one small bird, a mere piece of fluff.
Is reward enough.

Haiku

Give life to a bird
Which is a mere piece of fluff.
Is reward enough

Sonnet

He has done all things well.
He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.
Ephphata, Be Opened, on this thought dwell.
And spare a thought our will so weak.

Our garden is beautiful.
But somewhere is the apple tree.
We cannot resist the pull.
We pick and our eyes open but we are no longer free.

If only we would accept.
And trust.
But nearby a snake crept.
And we fell into dust.

But the antidote to the apple is there.
We just have to listen and hear.

Haiku

There is the apple
We cannot resist the pull
To be no longer free

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

Sonnet

For saying this you may go home happy.
The devil has gone out of your daughter.
How can we emerge from sickness’ valley.
And put disease to the slaughter.

A fourteen year old girl.
A remote grotto.
A vision of a pearl.
Mary aglow.

A small event.
Untold consequence.
Millions sent.
Seeking cognisance.

Candlelight on the river.
Of God a Marian sliver.

Haiku

A vision sent
Untold consequence for man
A Gift of Mary

Sonnet

Whatever goes into a man from outside cannot make him unclean.
Because it does not go into his heart but through his stomach.
What matters is not the seen but unseen.
That gets us over life’s hummock.

What comes out of heart’s desire.
All those things we fear to list.
Starting with liar.
Including all from which we cannot desist.

But with most of us it’s pride.
Maybe ambition.
They’re all as bad as one another we cried.
It’s a hopeless mission.

If only we could lock love into our heart.
We could escape temptation’s dart.

Haiku

Lock love in the heart.
Escape sin’s penetrating dart
And pride’s ambition.

[Origen, A.D.184-254 — Second Reading, Office of Readings today]

Sonnet

You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind.
Keep in mind the last word here.
Not to view scripture literally but using our mind.
Words can be used allegorically by an ancient seer.

Origen was happy to use the Ancient Greek philosophers.
But he was right to ask for an agreed Bible text.
Everything should be rational to help us with our cares.
But all points to a living God and a life that is next.

Why believe in God I wonder.
Is it is because man has a conscience.
Or there has to be a first mover.
Can he be proved by didactic reason or by spiritually awed sense.

I do not know but keep reading.
Somewhere out there a message is sending.

Haiku

Man has a conscience.
There has to be first mover
So does God exist

Sonnet

Keep your family safe.
That they they may always be defended by your protection.
We may chafe.
But that is our election.

Why have sixty million enjoyed the Les Miserables musical.
Because it is a story of redemption.
It is not just that the tunes are magical.
Its characters face down bitterness’ temptation.

The hero finds love in a lost child.
The priest forgives his theft.
Even the policeman realises in the end that he should have been mild.
The young man recognises to the older his debt.

So much on television is just nasty soap.
But we need love and hope.

Haiku

Love for a lost child
And Forgiveness for a theft
young owes the elder

Sonnet

Lying in bed I wonder when will it be day.
Risen I think how slowly evening comes.
Worries whirl, emotions, money, rules, family, what can we say.
We try, they just don’t add up, the sums.

These concerns pass, death awaits, all silencing.
But think of the child in the womb.
Warm, sightless, barely hearing.
The travail of birth to loom.

The child cannot imagine the future.
Freedom, sight, breath and movement.
We doubt heaven and hell, we cannot imagine such bliss or torture.
Yet it is there real now and in every moment.

Now blinded by worry we stand on the quay.
Then we will set sail and see.

Haiku

Blinded by worry
Now we stand on the quayside
Then we will set sail

Sonnet

Fresh and green are the pastures.
Where he gives me repose.
Nature raptures.
Softly the wind blows.

In a wooded valley.
I walk down a broad flat swathe of pasture.
A verdant narrowing alley.
I dawdle, there is no need to go faster.

A hare gambles away.
Bare trees, a pheasant rises.
The sky yellows at the end of the winter’s day.
I am utterly alone, there are no surprises.

I am led to the restful waters of a stream.
It is time to go home and come out of this dream.

Haiku

Hare gambles away
A pheasant rises squawking.
The sky yellows pink

Sonnet

Dominus Illuminatio, the Lord is my light.
And my salvation.
We don’t even have to be right.
We know we have his attention.

So someone had attacked me, it was some lie.
What of it.
I just looked at Westminster Abbey as I walked by.
The intricate mastery of the East End, by delicate window tracery lit.

How I marvelled at the faith.
To produce so much majestic beauty.
Right up to the reign of Henry the Eighth.
And Henry the seventh’s glorious chapel as a final duty.

I remembered the psalm, The Lord is the strength of my life.
Of whom then should I be afraid, or of any strife.

Haiku

The Abbey, walking.
Delicate Window traces
Majestic beauty

Sonnet

And if any place does not welcome you.
As you walk away shake the dust from your feet.
We may be defeated through and through.
We may view life through drizzly sleet.

Yet we carry on.
And move to the next town.
Life is merely a loan.
We will never know the truth till our soul is full grown.

What you have come to is nothing known to the senses.
Not a blazing fire or gloom turning to total darkness.
We face so many impossible fences.
We are devoid of true frankness.

Yet I will pull through.
And so will you too.

Haiku

We face some fences
Yet still I will pull through too
And so will you too

Sonnet

A prophet is only despised in his own country.
Among his own relations.
Respect is too often in Another Country.
Amongst other nations.

A ruinous barn next to a farmhouse in a courtyard.
Connected by a rickety, crumbling walkway.
We feel we will fall off to our death, all is marred.
Savery’s painting is sepia tone, brown and grey.

With split tree trunks.
Even nature is subject to temporality.
In this setting all that is missing is hooded monks.
All is heading to finality.

But here too is romantic, fairy tale beauty.
Out of rejection comes hope and duty.

Haiku

Out of rejection
Comes surely hope and duty
And also beauty

Sonnet

Now Master you can let your servant go in peace.
Because my eyes have seen His salvation.
You may pray without cease.
But fear that you will never arrive at the final station.

It is not death I fear but dying.
I dreamt I was approaching the last door.
It was beautiful, framed by branches and trees growing.
I paused, awed to the core.

I tried to pass through but the door was barred.
I knew there was no handle on the other side.
And I knew the door would dissolve as soon as I entered.
I would then be everywhere and nowhere in every and no tide.

One day that door will open, on this side I can barely see.
On the other I will surely clearly see.

Haiku

The door will open
On this side I barely see
On the other see

Sonnet

What is your name.
My name is legion.
Our own name is tame.
We come from every region.

If there is an unclean spirit
We make it within.
We could easily be rid of it.
It is our own regretful sin.

Who controls us with fetters, only ourselves.
And who holds the chains.
No one but ourselves.
It is we who hold the reins.

We can break free
If we merely try and see.

Haiku

We hold all the reins
If we merely try and see
We can too break free

Sonnet

I say this only to help you not to put a halter around your necks.
But simply to make sure that everything is as it should be.
Are we just worried about balances and checks.
Or are we truly free.

I dreamt I turned away from a friend who needed help.
I was too busy or couldn’t be bothered.
My heart was bound by weed and kelp.
Care was severed.

Now as a result I found myself in a grey box room.
The rooms I entered got smaller and lower roofed.
All about was total gloom.
I saw the room hurtling through space, sound proofed.

But then in despair I thought of my friend as a kindly light.
I was led gently to an exit and received back my sight.

Haiku

I thought of my friend
As a kindly light leading
Received back my sight

Sonnet

Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for.
Or prove the existence of the realities that at present remain unseen.
We worry whether this really is truth or just ancient lore.
Our faith falters even if we are keen.

I dreamt that I had some besetting fault.
As a result I found myself locked in a room, I couldn’t breathe.
Panic chocked me, I felt trapped in a vault.
And then my sight cleared, the door unlocked, fear I could sheathe.

But it was by faith that the saints obeyed the call.
By faith they knew they would again rise.
Locked on that black room I had had no faith at all.
I could see myself inside this box spiralling through space, deaf to my cries.

But the door did finally open.
Because in him, I had hope in.

Haiku

Door at last opens
Because now I hoped in him
Before the door closed