the rosebay willowherbs stand tall;
then in the wind jump
like Massai warriors
leaping to the sky,
the last white seed plumes
bobbing on their heads,
long thin necks stripped bare.
But yellows, oranges and reds
wear feather leaves,
as tribal dress for all
to swirl and sweep around
celebrating
the warrior seed that spreads
an army wind-borne
conquering distant ground.
November 4th 1989 Strathtay
(After Pam Ayres)
The church is a box of fireworks
with lights that fizz and splutter.
There are people who sing and speak up well
and some who simply mutter.
There are squibs that jump all over the place.
Like people you never know
whether they'll be in church or not
- their faith is stop and go!
There are bangers, dramatic when they appear
- a promise of things in store? -
just once and then no more!
Some are Catherine wheels
that fizz around full of en-thus-i-asm
but when its time to get anything done
their place is an empty chasm.
There are Roman Candles whose steady glow
lights up the dark world around.
Sure and clear is their faith, you know
their love has no hollow sound.
Some are sparklers alive with joy
their life is a delight -
we need them to liven our worship up
and make our faith shine bright.
Then there are rockets who soar up to God
their whole life lights up your heart
because they go on giving themselves
and doing much more than their part.
But all of these fireworks have one thing they share
and that is the light they shed -
it comes from the flame of one small match
the light of Christ must be there -
without it our fireworks are dead!
Growing Old
And there – it's ten o'clock
and the eyes ache.
I read too much, the eyes
are weak – and the mind.
Once there was light and
the search for truth exciting
as bits fitted into a corner
of the puzzle.
But now the pattern fades;
the eyes tell me
not to look so hard,
but accept where the weakened
mind leads back down
into the dark
where the ungraspable
simplicity is not only Love
but Love
only.
Bruma Recurrit Iners
(The Stillness of Midwinter)
There is no movement in the air.
Clear clouds lie languidly on the hills.
Drifts of transparent glass lie
piled against the hedge, unmoving air.
Stillness encircles trees.
Not a leaf stirs.
Only sounds move ripples on the still pool.
Robin song sprinkles bushes.
Geese overhead meet no resistance.
Widening circles of sound find
nothing to carry them very far.
Motionless the air hangs still.
The sky is a vast glass dome
fixed over all.
The Tower In Mist
Thick mist makes
thin skimmed milk,
the tower is submerged
yet it seems to float
with buoyant stones
founded on a shape
like a giant's
coracle upturned
which sank the day
before history.
Looming behind the mist's
gauze curtains the tower
has bulk without definition
withdrawing vaguely into
a past out of reach where mystery
is the only certainty
and questions the only answer.
What were these bones
hidden beneath its roots
only discovered when
clumsy machinery
broke their secret's seal?
Did the circling tower
like cupped hands hold
distant echoing cries
of murdered monks
or their plague-stricken groans?
Were they generations of hermits
circled by the foundation's
different stones their cell,
this upturned coracle
before the tower arose?
Once this tower
roofed by a cone
was a giant's pencil
making invisible writing
on the transparent pages
of the sky, leaving
nothing legible,
but, written in stone,
has been itself its story.
Yet any attempt at dredging
pebble-hard facts only stirs up
a mist of mud that hides
more than we ever can know
shadowy forms like fish slipping away
into the murky waters.
January
Switch on the light inside,
switch on the dark outside,
these January nights crawl mole-like
down long tunnels. These January days
slither slug-slow through greys,
through dull, through half-light,
half raising a languid eyelid, only at dawn,
no more than a prolonged stretching
from sleep to sleep, simply a yawn,
long drawn out reaching to dusk
from dusk of a slow dawn.
All days, all day keep out the sun,
throw a grey cloak of cloud across the sky.
Keep on the light, and keep the dark
outside. Live January days in bright
warm rooms, till once again the tide
of light flows in along
the year's widening estuary,
to February, March and on, as soon
the sun grown strong
reaches high tide, in June.
Ageing
The years increase,
the powers decrease,
This that I am so different
from what I once was;
when the body could do
what the mind set it to
the height of a hill,
the length of a road
achieved;
the hidden valleys,
the Border bye-ways
discovered;
the search for badger setts
on slippery braes
accomplished.
'To relive is to understand'
to reach the essence, the irrigation
without the effort, by letting
the sediment of daily clutter,
sifted out by the prospector's pan,
wash away in the flowing water,
to live again the true gold
of past experience long gone,
sprung from the head-waters,
moorland-born.
All This Is Given
Love is not changed by death
And nothing is lost
And all in the end is harvest
(Edith Sitwell)
How very easy, looking back along
the deep dark corridor of memory
to see everything as washed away
or as sucked into futility
by time's receding tide;
all that is left the sterile hopes,
a sad detritus of dreams,
as though death held the pride
of place, rough-ed
ging all relationships,
strewing the shards of all our schemes,
Self-pitying fingers scrabble among
scraps, lit by sickly beams
of merciless self-doubt; self questioning
quicksands suck at searching feet
Did ever I make a difference?
See the reality – not found
By seeking meaning or fulfilment,
but waiting silently, the eyes
of memory closed in darkness
till another light's surprise
breaks in, a rising tide flows
over all the past with healing,
scattered fragments drowned
into a oneness. All
this is given, not achieved ~
the deepest satisfaction
release from the self-grasping
into the hand open wide
receiving Love's harvest, carried
on an endlessly inflowing tide
sweeping everything before
up to the final transformation
of resurrection on the far shore.
###
The Rev. Edward Macallan Robertson graduated from Aberdeen University with a first-class honours. He followed this up with a B.Litt at Queen's College, Oxford. He came back up to Scotland in 1960 as Rector of St. Cuthbert's, Hawick. Prior to his retirement in 1993 he was Priest-in-Charge at St. Kessog's, Auchterarder and St. James, Muthill.
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