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

Sonnet

They shall soon be cut down like the grass.
And wither as the green herb.
So fret not, look at life at a distance as in a field glass.
Trust in the Lord but keep close to the curb.

I dreamt that I was adrift.
I could not even put up the sail to my cost.
The tide was dangerous and swift.
I felt soon I would be lost.

Then in this dream I was tongue tied in a speech
Not able to read another’s written note.
My career on the beach.
I remembered that lost boat.

Then I decided to be myself, do it my way.
Words came easily, I awoke to a new day.

Haiku

Soon cut down like grass
And wither as the green herb
Trust in the Lord now

Sonnet

He had a vision that made all his writings seem like straw.
And he wrote no more.
Here was a man who laid down the new law.
But in the end he stood silently, merely in awe.

How to resolve Christianity and Aristotelianism.
If a truth seems to contradict your faith, just investigate.
Any truth in it will not contradict true faith, our own ism.
Better than never starting and seeking is being late.

We have the right to enter the sanctuary by a new way.
A living opening through the curtain.
All questions seem up resolvable, no road could I lay.
And then in a dream I saw a great sun yellowed lake, I was no longer uncertain.

The lake was undiluted love in the World.
A true answer to the Underworld.

Haiku

The lake undiluted
Sun blessed love in the whole world
No to underworld

Sonnet

Some fell on rocky ground where it found little soil.
Some fell into thorns and the thorns grew up and chocked it.
What do we achieve for all our oil.
Our lamp goes out no sooner than it is lit.

In the parable we are the seed.
But sometimes we are the sower.
My gardening efforts always go to seed.
I seldom succeed as a grower.

The potatoes are small.
The carrots wrinkled.
The runner beans certainly not tall.
The growth gone despite my sprinkle.

But one day I hope in another life.
The seed I sow will come to new life.

Haiku

One day another life
The seed I sow will ripen
And lead to new life

Sonnet

You are never to be ashamed of witnessing.
But with me bear the hardships.
But what comes first, listening.
Before anything comes to the lips.

The original painting is in Antwerp.
But in a small Lincolnshire chapel is a wonderful copy.
One Ruben’s handwork.
The second beautiful but perhaps a little more sloppy.

A hidden away Mass House from 1793.
One a great cathedral, self-confident.
Both dedicated to Our Lady, one great, one tiny.
Neither in witness diffident.

Both dedicated to pathos.
And loss.

Haiku

Descent from the Cross
Both pathos and loss described
Two pictures portray

Monday, Third Week in Ordinary Time

Sonnet

I was on that journey.
And about midday a bright light from Heaven shone about me.
Does St Paul’s conversion concern me.
Absolutely, how else am I to be free.

Free from doubt.
Disbelief.
Flailing about.
Grief.

I wait for a vision.
It never comes.
I cannot even make the decision.
Certainty mere distant drums.

But I stay on the Damascene road.
Hoping to throw off doubt’s load.

Haiku

Damascene journey
No light appears in the sky
I carry on path

Sonnet

Lord let me know your ways.
Lord teach me your paths.
For all my days.
Remembering Lourdes’ holy baths.

The Japanese Garden.
Winter twilight in Holland Park.
It’s five, time for the closing warden.
It’s nearly dark.

Gone are the crowds.
Slow swimming koi, timeless rocks.
Rushing water, slowing clouds.
Shreds of snow, a London fox.

As He was walking he saw Andrew and Simon casting their net.
For they were fishermen.
In this calm place no need to fret.
The shadows lengthen, a trace of quiet zen.

But do I seek His spiritual net too.
Am I ready to be caught too.

Haiku

Slow swimming koi
Rushing clear stream timeless rocks
Now no need to fret.

Sonnet

Such a crowd collected that they could not even have a meal.
They were not selected.
They sought what they knew to be real.
None were rejected.

To seek him in mass exposed.
That is all we wanted.
If the church is closed.
Is not our faith daunted.

But where spirit can rise.
So there ‘hope’ can sing.
A woman with bandaged eyes.
Listening to the music that one unbroken string can bring.

This is not an image of melancholy.
Our very vulnerability is not hopeless folly.

Haiku

Not melancholy
But vulnerability
Not hopeless folly

Sonnet

If that first covenant had been without a fault.
There would have been no need for a second one to replace it.
The old is replaced with the new salt.
A new lamp is lit.

In Philipp Runge’s painting.
It is a translucent morning.
Here is harmony of lighting.
This is landscape newly creating.

Here is an innocent view.
Of young human life seen.
Skies of cerulean blue.
Fields of verdant green.

Can we too begin a new covenant.
To recreate benign government.

Haiku

Can we too begin
A new covenant to make
Benign government

Sonnet

Looking at Ruisdael’s The Jewish Cemetery.
Here are symbols of mortality.
With sadness here we bring our loved ones to bury.
In the picture a dead white tree has centrality.

Then the rushing stream.
The black storm tossed clouds, the crumbling ruins.
The neglected graves as in a dream.
All is vanitas, take note, beware humans.

All who were afflicted in any way.
Were crowding forward to touch him.
We too can keep fear at bay.
If we too seek to touch him.

The signs are all about us.
It is not too late to catch his bus.

Haiku

All is vanitas
The sights are all about us
Too late to catch bus