Threshold

 (thoughts approaching Easter 8)

 

A cockerel crows its betrayal of night

the gold light of dawn

kissing the Light.

The sun throws its gold coinage

from horizon's prison

the ransom of release paid.

Another prison

opens its rocky door

that had no grip, no holding power

but kept the living at bay

until the third day

and the beginning.

Standing on the threshold of an empty tomb:

the void is endless,

darknesses complete,

as we stare into the abyss.

Eternity is not within

however much it draws us in,

however much it tears apart,

however much it breaks our heart.

Eternity has left

the building;

we must turn our eyes

from what has gone

and look for what

is yet to come,

in the warmth

of a new day

in the garden

of hope.

the waiting time

(thoughts approaching Easter 7)

No-one celebrates this day.
This is the waiting time,
the coin has been tossed
and beyond human intervention.
The faces of anxiety and jubilation
compete
as the spin continues
and the world turns
its daily course.


No-one celebrates this day.
This is the between day,
the Sabbath day of no existence
when nothing can be done
yet all is being done.

No-one celebrates this day.
Preparation day:
in a cloak of invisibility,
some form of eternity
is at work.

No-one celebrates this day.
Mourning day:

when tears abound
and the future,
suddenly unmapped,
lies broken in a dark tomb
with a sentry of stone.

No-one celebrates this day.

Death and entrance

 

(thoughts approaching Easter 6)

Friday approaches

like a black cloud on a dark sky.

Stealing through the strangling night

it brings a morrow like no other.

Blood stands at its entrance;

a door that allows no exit

but invites pain

and separation in its portal.

We walk to the hill of proclamation

alone in the witnessing crowd,

alone in an embarrassment of emotion,

alone and stranded on an island of fear.

This hill holds no secrets

but gossips its hollow victory

to troubled, trembled, souls

that do not comprehend

but see only finality, darkness'

eternal storms

and an immovable stone -

there is no hope, no opening beyond.

Elsewhere a curtain breaks like dawn.

Light shines in

and out

from a Holy place.

Thursday Night in an olive grove

 A conversation                                    (thoughts approaching Easter 5)                                                     (Luke 22 v 39-46)

After the meal,
the banter,
the revealing,
a walk in the night air
to clear the head.
In a grove of olives,
unready as half grown fruit,
He searches for His Father’s will
a sense of unfinished business
searing His soul.
Man-sense and God-sense
at war within Him.

Alone again.

The captain of a ship
with unripe crew
and a sinking feeling.

This can’t be right,
they are not ready,
this storm cannot be stilled
with quiet authority.
This is God stuff.
This is the agony of time
within a frame unconfined by days

yet destined for the breakers yard.
This is a pivot of eternity
and they are not ready
to be alone.
Alone as gods are.

Alone as We are.
Alone as You make Me.
And I am not ready
but Yours is the
power
the glory
and the will
to which I surrender.

The final straw

(thoughts approaching Easter 4)

The doors were open,

welcoming,

well come in

we'll draw you in.

Into trestle tabled

capitalist religion -

bureau-de-change

bargain, worthless,

temple money.

The sacrifice of labour

buys penny prayers

bribing grace

seamlessly

from intermediaries

whose received grace

was unearned.

And anger rises

this time,

this special time,

when eternity approaches

with unstoppable stealth.

Time set in motion

on the journey,

on the donkey,

on palm branch

prophecy.

And the Sacrifice

releases the sacrifices

in a cacophony

of bird and goat

for whom release

is no reprieve.

And He himself

knows neither

release

nor reprieve.

Time treads

 (thoughts approaching Easter 3)

 

These are the days between,

there is a map, a plan

eternal sat-nav.

This is a pause for thought

hours of wrestling

with mental pain.

These are not fallow days

or days of making hay

for there is no sun shining

yet.

Constellations pulse,

planets orbit,

stars shine their death throes,

comets tread ordained paths.

Time treads its man-made road

between darknesses.

Envious night

has time of its own

and waits in the wings

for Friday's moment of ambush.

Preparations are made

the table of the future is being laid,

chalice and plate

await their filling.

Prophecy or the calling of the moon

(thoughts approaching Easter 2)

 

Is it prophecy
or the calling of the moon* ?
The wave begins its journey
sets its face to the shore
and rolls.
Momentum fills its stride -
the magnetism
of destination.

On its way
it thunders outcrops
with its tears
or angrily enters the temple
in loudly spraying uproar.

Moving on in relentless pace
drawing to crescendo,
beyond tipping point.

On Friday it crashes
headlong -
breaking
into shards
spreading
its powerful benefice
upon a parched shore.

*Passover/Easter date is governed by the phase of the moon.

Echo

(thoughts approaching Easter 1)


Christmas:

Thirty three years gone:
travelling with a donkey
and no company.
Mapped by prophecy,
Bethlehem's candles
sight in the night -
the end of the journey.
Toward a woman in pain,
and a birth.
Visitors will celebrate.




Palm Sunday:

Thirty three years on:
riding on a donkey
in thronged company
mapped by prophecy.
Jerusalem's jaws
gape ahead
the end of a road.
Toward a woman's pain
and new birth.
Visitors will celebrate.

threshold

Standing on the threshold of an empty tomb:

the void is endless,

darkness complete,

as we stare into the abyss.

Eternity is not within

however much it draws us in

however much it tears apart

however much it breaks our heart.

Eternity has left

this building:

we must turn our eyes

from what has gone

and look for what

is yet to come

in the warmth

of a new day

in the garden

of hope.

Good Friday poem

This is a link to the poem by Keith Wallis, read by Louis Kasatkin of Destiny Church Wakefield, that was used in the Good Friday service.
on this hill

this is the text:

On this hill

(Contemplation)

In darkest daylight

with all sin revealed

the host is lifted high.

There is no melancholy melody to this sacrifice,

no quietude of choir-filled gentility

to align thought and soul.

This altar of absorbing pain

staggers the senses, grips the mind.

This is a solitary place.

A hermitage,

crowded with broken hearts

and wounded spirits,

oblivious of their fellows.

Let sense be dulled;

for here the sting of death

awaits those who turn their face

for easier vistas.

This unquiet beauty of wracked passion

steals the splendour of simpler creations

and scourges art and word and song.

Tears are the sea

from which this mast arises,

this lighthouse which signifies

wrecking rocks and vicious tides.

The storm which ravages here

breaches time and place,

pulsing of life and void of death.

A lightning flash shears the curtain,

the thunderous roar

a fanfare to sanctity.

On this hill eternity is on trial;

a single soul it’s witness,

the jury a world of closed eyes.

A timbered, suffering sacrifice

sees my small pain

and weeps.....

.......for me.

 

colour

and everywhere and always

the stone is rolled away

in country, town,

in street

and home

new life, new hope,

new day

has come

light begets colour

as torn curtain and midday night

become revelation

yet, ever, the red of blood

comes with the dawn

where covenant is proclaimed

and darkness

does not understand

47. the Light returns

The light has returned,

suddenly, day is special

and the breath of wind

is excited.

Shadows steal away

in defeat

and hide behind

all things,

their carrion addiction

unsatisfied.

The smell of dawn,

no longer tainted by death,

carries the incense of presence.

It is Easter,

as the rooster crows,

waking the world

and all things are new.

46. not a green hill faraway

original artwork - Keith Wallis

We sang of a green hill

in our churches

and chapels,

our four walled

comfort castles.

We sang of a faraway green hill

which was not green

but scrubby,

dusty, rocky

exposed and bleak.

If it were a colour

it would be red:

red with anger,

red with blood-lust.

Red with fear,

red with tears

red with the mist

that covers eyes.

It was not a green hill faraway

but the desolate place

in our hearts

that longs

for

Easter morn.

45. like Friday

Now it’s wide open

but revealing nothing.

The path leads in

like Good Friday’s cross

but there is no destination

revealed,

no tree-lined avenue

to the future,

no welcome mat.

In the shade

there is the suggestion

of more,

but no more than that.

To eyes that have seen

more of everything,

more of nothing

doesn’t seem right.

The possibility

of a change in direction

requires a step

over the threshold

of today

leaving footprints

of yesterday

for others to follow.

42. I remember Easters

I remember Easters

when the sparkling paper

on the Easter egg

was the only complication.

When which ear of the bunny

do I eat first,

or what to do with

the too-curious cat

were the only questions.

There was no blood involved,

no pain-filled imaginations

of the cruelty of sacrifice,

no wonderings of lost days

or mid-day darkness.

Then wine and bread

became the wrappings

of Easter

and it wasn’t ‘fun’

anymore;

it

was

JOY.

40. The rising tide of dawn

The rising tide of dawn,

red and raw as bloody Friday,

floods the beginning of day.

Night shrugged off like an overcoat

as time stands still to watch

the unfolding,

listening to the overture

of waking birds.

The revelation begins

with tearful steps

into the assumed,

but unknown;

a journey

beyond

the night-dark,

cold-soul, mausoleum.

25. Magnificat

‘Magnificat’ by Tessa Hawkes - in Saffron Walden Church

Mary kneels

before the kiss

of angel

and the promises

of Christmas

and Easter;

twins

she will carry

in joy and grief.

The cradle and cross -

incomprehensible pain

and blessing of

bloody entrances

and exits.

6. Chocked

Chocked wheels,

a cart going nowhere,

fast unmoving

in the withering of time.

Dust gathers

crowding the terraces

to watch the decay.

The week could start

with the brakes on,

blinkered to progress

and a road untraveled.

Today is Monday, unmapped;

the week ahead unwrapped,

the path not charted by the stars

but the palm of a broken hand.

This is where love starts

for dust-ridden lives -

first-footing toward a hill

and an ugly scar

that tore the sky

for hours

once

upon

an Easter.