Anna – Last Words
1.
Today I say goodbye
too soon, dear ones, I know;
too few, the years we’ve shared
so brief, the lessons learned.
But things beyond our reach
outside our grasp
have come to make this day my last;
this day I pass from you and all the love you’ve shared in these short, few, seven, years.
2.
I feel you standing over me
and know your longing vigil at my side –
as anguished Pietas beside my linen tomb –
is soon to end.
Beyond these machines and their beeping, breathing, beats;
my heart already pulses to another sound –
to which their rhythmic prods aren’t keeping time –
It draws me ever closer to a light just like your love
but only so much brighter
shining from above beyond your sad and watching eyes
Let yourself be drawn
Chris Ahrends
Let your self be drawn by simpler things,
your heart and its desires.
Let your doing be the action
your being shares.
And your action will be
the sacred morning mist
of a dawning day,
and your presence as water
in a parched land.
*****************
In the Silence
In France a few years ago – this monastery – alone and in silence
In the Silence
Chris Ahrends
In silence.
In the waiting silence.
In the daily waiting silence.
Attentive and with inner smile.
Mindfully he sits.
As though
his life
depends on it
because it does.
The silence – waiting watching non-judgemental smiling silence.
It works on him.
Stripping away social-self.
Gently dethroning ego-self.
Opening the way for true-self’s yearning emergence.
In silence he sits and
watches the new begin
It always does.
Morning Prayer
Morning Prayer
Chris Ahrends
I enter in
the darkened empty chapel
alone and prayerful
incense lingering
in memory of
those who made
their earlier communion here.
I touch water
sign the cross and bend a knee
to the red glow that beacons
and beckons I see
the Holy One
is host here.
I see candles
faithfully flickering
at saint’s sandalled feet
and add my lowly votive too
saying
as faithful have before…
Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with you; Blessed are you amongst women; Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus; Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death…
I find my place
in darkened corner
and start my prayers alone amongst the ancient saints
A single voice
in symphony with the myriad
who’ve done this
and so much more before…
Each day
I add my trivial vigil
and enter in
Each time
amazed
by the holy place within,
where always,
I am met by grace.
Christmas 2013
born a child, we made him a god
a Jew, we made him a Christian
a Palestinian, we made him European
brown, we made him white
a servant, we made him a king
a revolutionary, we made him a saint
a law-breaker, we made him a law-maker
a friend of prostitutes, we turn away
inclusive, we made him exclusive
the human face of God, we turned him into art
bringer of a new way, we made it a church
renewer of faith, we made a religion
lover of people, we kill in his name
living the truth, we make it ours
giver of hope, we want certainty
come to make all things whole, we make them ours
born as a child, we made him a god
in our own image
and call it Christmas
New Dawn
Alone away from home
he sees more clearly
than before that
the pale light shining
is a ray of
a new day dawning
for him, who has found in a field,
a treasure, and sells all to
buy the field
in which to sow the silence
that transforms him,
and makes all things new.
Ode to Rachel
Eighteen today,
a day old,
she died.
Memories so vivid, yet
faraway, her
memorial day
Tubes intruding,
restraining the life, she
was leaving.
Worked all night throughout
our vigil, her visit
so fleeting.
When it was over
Nothing to say but pray
for grace to comfort those
distraught by our loss.
After the service
I lifted alone,
the little white box
that
Took her away with
part of me that died too
that day.
****
Mosotho Boy
His face in my lens; it
could have been
his eyes; I’m seen and
taken in, to
smouldering pools of
mountain night, that
with a glance, cast me
askance, saying
What are you doing here?
He’s ten or could have been
a Mosotho boy,
of any age, whose
stage is set long before,
by lore of birth, which
makes me take
his glance to heart, and say
What are you looking for?
I can’t explain
my captured sense, the
thoughts evoked;
Our stories so diverse, a
different universe,
yet in him I
find someone
who touches me and says
What are you searching for?
So much he has to bring
to what he knows
his role must be up here, no
doubting thought,
he’ll be a man
just as he ought,
as happens in this place;
But in his case,
an enigmatic face says,
I want more than this.
Then he smiles,
white light explodes,
his face aglow, and
then I know
we’re no strangers
standing here
the boy and me in unity, our
communal humanity
enabling us to say,
What do you want from me?
I want, I think, his innocence,
to live by clan and custom
held firm at home, a boy
who roams the hills
a life modernity steals, from
the likes of me;
He wants, he thinks, my freedom,
my right to choose, to lose
his many ties; my
access to the roads, that
lead from here;
And so we search
each other’s worlds,
the other’s mind, and
knowing what it is that
we shall find, say,
We need each other.
Daylong Struggle to Pray – a second run at it!
1. Morning Prayers:
Candle lit
in catholic arc of stone,
Sitting still,
attuned for daily grace,
I find instead
a taunting separate self
singing the tuneless hymns
of my slumbering morning-prayers.
2. Midday Intercession:
Gathering thoughts at noon,
in midday sun
I seek the light to pray
through clouded mind
for all the broken world;
My calloused heart
so hard to hear
my racing thoughts
so hard to clear
during my struggling noonday-prayers.
3. Evening Prayers:
I come again at end of day;
Prayerwheel’s turned another cog;
My evening rays,
another’s morning mist;
my hours worked,
another’s sleep;
my letting go,
another’s to keep;
And in my dimming evening prayer,
I look at last
beyond the dark and hovering cloud
and find once more
grace enough
to start again.
****
Lagoon Meditation
Here at the lagoon – the end of a beautiful day – I sit on the stoep of the old visserman’s huis at sunset watching the receding tide – thinking about the times we’ve been here – the years spent sitting here – the countless people who’ve passed this way before – and especially those, who like Pete have loved this lagoon and now see it from the other side.
Here at the lagoon, I sit feeling small and insignificant yet connected to it all – and accept afresh that our lives have their own ebb and flow – that nothing stays the same – that everything flows and answers to a higher lunar power.
Here at the lagoon, I sit in the evening breeze and acknowledge that the wind blows when and where it likes – and that our lives are like the flowers of the droë veld – we blossom one day and then the wind blows over us and we are gone.
Here, in the chilly southern breeze I sit and remember Pete who has sailed that Great Wind – and I feel deeply my many vulnerabilities – that we are but sojourners – wanderers along the shores of life – as impermanent as were our fore-bearers like Mrs Ples a million years ago and others since, who walked places like this in search of life.
Here in the evening light, I sit and watch the lagoon – and I’m reminded of the words of Antonio Machado who sought to teach us that we all are wanderers on the road, and that the road is made by walking. “By walking”, he said, “one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again.”
And so, sitting here – at the lagoon – watching, remembering and thinking, I’m grateful for the wonder of life as it parades past me – for the path I am walking that will never be trod again – I’m moved by the life of all who like Pete loved their path and walked it so fully – I’m nurtured by the sense of connectedness to all that is around me – and I’m challenged by the vulnerability, the impermanence of life that keeps me humble and watching and thinking and remembering.
Easter Appeal
I came across a stanza by Gerard Manley Hopkins, in which he uses Easter as a verb.
“Let him easter in us; be a dayspring to the dimness in us, be a crimson-cresseted east”I’ve used his remarkable words in this poem – and credit him accordingly.
***************
Easter Appeal
i/
Come starspray of hope
balm for my blackened past
my baptism of fire
through which
unclad and unprepared
I sought a saving way.
ii/
Come wellspring of faith
spirit for my weary memories
my lost desert ways
through which
unconscious and unknowing
I searched the windswept dunes.
iii/
Come dawnwing of love
light for my lonely tomb
my longed locked lodgings
in which
unwelcome and unfulfilled
I made my failed acts of love.
iv/
Come ancient Easter-Man
Come easter in me
beyond the fires
the desert dunes
the long locked tombs
and failed acts of love…
be a dayspring to the dimness in me,
a crimson-cresseted east
arising from my darkness!
************
Bringing the Whole of Me
bringing the whole of me to sit in silence in the old stone chapel where many have sat before candles burning in their presence here at dawn I feel the hard work of carrying the load of duplicity as I do coming into this place with all the pieces of me reflecting the light and shadow the signs and acts of hope and failure of living between spirit and flesh all one but not aligned and so sowing differently and reaping consequently reflecting the parts of me manifest in longing and giving in loving and leaving in breathing and dying like the air and earth that I am with my harvests of wholeness and nets of emptiness all of which I feel as I sit here with it all alone except I’m not as I hear a deeper wisdom calling so gently its sound is but a breath so quiet is it it could be missed saying that I should be careful not to create or perpetuate within me a land of exile from which parts of me cannot return and receive a warm welcome home and as I listen I awaken to that deeper me within me where my deepest-self that true and sacred me dwells and holds all the unaligned parts of me together and welcomes home all the exiles I know so well especially the prodigal one no stranger to me but who remains a wild running teen searching for fulfilment his wanderings causing such disruption as well as the older son that part of me who never leaves but whose trying-so-hard-to-please and catch-an-eye causes such fatigue and self-doubt both these without judgment the deepest-me holds and welcomes home here and now this morning in this age-old chapel of light to be still in the holy darkness with the candles and saints and prayers to wait as the silence moulds me into one as it has done in countless souls through time and will do in mine
Ode to Boyhood
Hot summer days on friendship beach,
Sandy sunny belonging
in unquestioned brotherhood.
Brown bodies on sweaty bunks,
sheets of discovery
uncovering unbounded life.
Comrades on mountain peaks,
euphoric blistered steps
deepening tribal togetherness.
Cycles pedaling city streets,
ridden rhythmic life
of unconscious sleepfulness.
Ah, that boyhood stretch,
Sun-kissed, wild-blessed
naïve-blood-brotherly-time
in which we learned of life;
that love takes and love gives
and how we love, is how we live.
No dinner harmony tonight
pic by alex grey
***************
Looking forward to dinner with friends…
who had sailed the seas and
swam with dolphins;
Listening to tales
of inspiring worlds and
pondering the shamans’ cryptic words,
“Man is the Dream of the Dolphins”
But we did not speak of these things…
So I sought her feelings on more
(as she had once before) about
“the mauve carpet of stars
they rode during the long nightwatch”
And how in the ocean’s depth they saw
“memories of another shore
once strolled as people of the morn.”
But we could not talk of these things…
We spoke instead of passing fads,
that, each passing day
are washed away
and found no words to share…
the lonely seas we’ve sailed
and others long desired,
of undocking and of planing
of adventures and of failing
and of that ancient cold conniving
South Wind
each some tide must ride.
Through that night I came to know
and to understand
our central human
compass bearing:
“Lost in thought”
We’re lost in thought;
listening without hearing
living while we’re sleeping
sailing but never leaving
in friendships lost at sea…
High in the Malutis
i/
High in the Malutis
I see clinging crops on
craggy mountain contours
surrounding thatched huts
and wonder,
whose homes are they?
ii/
I see the young boy not yet ten
plastic bottles
and gumboots singing
at dusk
dispatched to
fetch well-water
for the night and family
as have his brothers fetched
for years before.
iii/
I see a blanket-wrapped man
his dark brow still
darkened at dawn
driving six oxen already
carting rocks
that will one day become
his wall, his home, his kraal
his all.
iv/
I see the bustling women walking, bright
patterned dresses swinging
umbrellas holding off
the sun and later, the
coming storm
on their way home
and ask myself,
where are they going and
will they get there in time
and for what?
v/
I see the distant shepherd
herding scattered flocks on
well-worn paths
whip cracking
dust spraying
and wonder how
he keeps his eye
on so many
and against what
does he have to watch
that they may safely graze?
vi/
I see two shy toddlers
teetering near their hut
naked but
for unbuttoned jerseys
holed and old and
as dusty as
the gnarled tree
under which their wire-carts
lie waiting for them
to ride away
one day.
vii/
I see the tough teenage boys
sticks in hand
drifting to the village
keen dark eyes watching
through grey balaclavas
pulled down
as hard as they
believe they are when
prowling shabby shabeens
where one night
they’ll fight
to show they’re
becoming men.
viii/
I see the weary grandmother
sitting outside her door, her
thread-bare blanket a
garment of service of
years of toil
etched in each clear line of
her face, the story of
how, with her own hands, her
husband gone, she
raised each child and brick to
build their lives and house
all three rooms proud,
and I’m overwhelmed by
her power.
ix/
I see an elder approaching,
white-bearded and bent,
the retired catechist, I’m told,
his wide-rimmed hat
pulled low, his
well-trod gate
now slow
after years of blessings
and walking and talking and teaching
a faith he still holds dear,
and, as we pass,
his hands held open and up,
he reverently greets
“Dumela N’tate”,
and I too,
am blessed.
x/
This, and so much more,
everyone everything so real
in the Malutis I get it, I feel;
And wonder as I see
another life another deal,
who would I be?
The Night’s Quiet Hour
In the night’s quiet hour
I awake.
Sleep escapes
my tired head of
thoughts that lead to nowhere;
Now here now there,
no urgent paths to tread.
Just faces, places, tasks and stories
raising their many coloured heads,
their textured memories,
their wordless threads:
* A sister enduring treatment with concern,
* A friend who mourns his sibling’s early death,
* Another deep on grief’s grim lonely path,
* A friend I couldn’t meet today, from afar,
* An email I await and long to read
* Another to which I’ve promised to respond,
* A client confessing a deep held need,
* A world that hates, that loves, is caught in greed;
* The dreams for which the lonely long.
All these I try to hold,
To mull, like the precious stones they are
these thoughts around me, that
surround me
In the dark;
of God’s mysterious love
that’s awake always
with me, thank God
in the night’s quiet hours.
Remain Open
Remain open and vulnerable to
God, he pleads…
How do I?
Surrender the small-self,
all tied up in images,
the need for assurance
and, am I loveable?
Allow that first-self
unseen, unknown, unfolding
God’s DNA in each of us
to be present
and be present to it,
he suggests….
Anguish
I saw them today
living with such anguish
My heart tore
listening to their story
Described how hard it is,
Making and keeping
those around them –
Relationships of any depth
Pushing and pulling
Counter-weighing the forces
of those who seek, they said
to break them
Such frailty amidst
the anger; ah, that pain that burns,
Feeding the wounds
that inflame our souls
They came to say today
they’re so uncertain
this way or that or what to do
there seems no path
They shared their suffering today
jagged edges cutting rough
through their longing childhood
its time denied; for which they long
So hard to share, they say
pain gagging in their throats;
Swallowing hard the choking words
that describe such aching hearts
Living on the edge, they wonder;
Is it wrong, a home of the condemned?
Or a space to make their own
to find themselves, afar but free?
We talked an hour today
agreed there’s no one way;
Except to listen and seek to hold
with open hands what’s in the room
Yes we said, to meet again,
next week, maybe many, as
journeying home means journeying down through loss,
the grief, the pain; no promises, but in trust
They came to see me today
Such anguish; made me think of mine
not so far away; another edge, my ledge
From which consciousness brought me home…
*****
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