COLLIE
Not a house-dog
Too quick-silver in small places
Tail brushing the air
Like a paladin’s ostrich fan,
Or down curled, starred.
She squeezes out
Various pitched sounds
Talking effusively
Top-dogging us
For attention.
Glass beads her amber eyes
Follow the main advantage
Plead her immediate need
Loudly
Persistently
For
another trip outdoors.
Scratches at shadows,
Gnaws at a stick, bootlaces,
Leather bags
Rattles her dish across floors-
True to her name – GAEL
A wind on the loose
Loud and hurricane force!
Everywhere- under one’s feet
Not a house-dog
But learning with quick eyes
To imitate human sleeping positions
Comical slanted head
Upturned paws
A Gael of a girl – Irish of course!
FRAGMENTED BUT FOUND
“How very weak the very wise,
How very small the very great.”
William Makepeace Thackeray
The Given, not the continuous journey on,
Stops the Wheel. Is not slow growth targeted at
A future gaol; but is a spiral spreading out from
The eternal here and now, fullness in that
The Given, is flesh and bone, shadowed by one
Gathering up what is, when all is gone.
The given is a girl, whose flesh and bone
Became a book, the Word was written on;
Fullness and grace, given through her to all;
Fullness, becoming most, by being small.
The dying Word, saying, Behold your son!
And giving one, gave many sons to her alone.
The given, not incessant struggle to become,
Stops the Wheel; targets the paradox of one
Made everyman, - outside and in the world.
Be still and let the spiral concentrate, build
Light; become flesh and blood, for one and all;
The given is being grasped, beyond the fall.
ASK ANY SAINT
“We must love our own poverty, as Jesus loves it.”
Thomas Merton
Think your own thoughts, do your own thing – alas
Unlike the Desert within, where few survive,
Most of us chose the easy way, and pass
Into distractions - where Love cannot live.
What to do then? Uprooted from our selves
How can we keep the spark within alive?
Don’t compromise, be patient with yourselves;
Only by honest courage can you thrive
And grow aware of God in everything,
And yes, content with what we have right now,
This alone can to our weak struggles bring
Us to a place, unlike the one we know,
One wholly other, ever emerald green,
With nothing overhead - or in between.
SAINT - OR CIPHER?
“No, God does not want it!” Maria Goretti
When I try to translate you into words
Do I violate you again? Use your open clarity
To craft unintentional alien constructs,
That going past you miss the plain, authentic
Rough knotted tree-bark, the real 12 year old girl
Rooted, oak-like in God? Are we bulwarked in self-love
Alas, unable to put into focus the hard choices
You made; or match it - your depth-charge forgiveness?
Ignorant as a headland over dark seas
You stand rock-firm; struck by cold deliberate
Waves of violence; scarred by avoidable pain,
As if you had made a career of sufferings!
Though even silt and pebbles glint recognition;
Inarticulate things: bruised grass-blades and stones
Cherish you more than we can, with the soiled shards,
The shallow praise of ignorant wounded words!
THE ANGEL
“In this theatre of man’s life it is reserved
only for God and angels to be lookers on.”
Francis Bacon
With your wings of earth and shadows, Angel,
Be for the final seed of my search, good soil;
Benevolent amber of the sphinx face of God,
Forget the haunted soul with transfixed eyes,
The memory of his mistakes, offences, lies.
Open the fairway of the sky’s white threshold,
The harbour beyond our night; from sleep awake us.
Be a mirror image of hopeful dreams;
Approach my uninhabited house, asleep in darkness;
To the brute mystery of dust and blood alert us.
Cover us with your wings of earth and shadow,
That in our flesh stigmata of shafted light,
May touch us, as the sun touches the fallow
Field of our unsown heart, our eyes averted sight.
THE PETER PAN GIRL
*“Zum Zummeln habe ich sogar kein Talent.”
Clara Schumann
Peter Pan girl, the same yet different observing
Your profile at different ages, to get alongside
You isn’t easy; ‘Who were you really? we ask,
But can’t quite get you in focus, why’s that?
Slim mostly, with soulful eyes, at best your face
A child-mask, always, from first to last
Why did you need so many people, always
On call about you, to shut out the shriek of silence?
And give your art stature? A typical Virgo
Otherwise, admitting this, Hard work
is always the best diversion from pain. You were
Awkward, shallow-serious about what ever task
Was set you in childhood and motherhood.
Look! dressed in night and snow your soul bled salt
As if a vein once opened couldn’t be staunched
Unless your public like moths to a flame flew
Giddily in your light, petrified by brilliance.
When under your white hands struck ivories spoke
As God did to chosen ones His wounded saints.
How good you were in tying up frayed ends of ropes
And those that being too taut constantly snapped,
Always blindfold doing the best you could with
What was given you – like God - meeting the worst
Head on, and causing a change from Black to white,
As woman, hatched by the North wind, nourished by sand
And phosphorescent silences you were unique:
Wundermädchen, Königliche Kaiserliche Kammervirtuisin!
It seems that your closest friends concluded this:
Your best, enough, enlarged, was great and good
* “Work is always the best diversion from pain.”
Alan C. Brown
