My Friend

To my spiritual director

I am a book
You wrote
For almost fifty years
The title page
So carefully chosen
After many hours
Suffering and prayer,
Slowly calling me to
Forsake my nets
And follow your footprints
Into time.

I am a book
Of few pages
Yet lovingly tended
Illustrated with your
Crafting hand
Delicate in colours
Sharp in outlines defined.

I am a book
Someone
One day may read
To find
Traces of Him
Who called us both
To write a tale
With love for Him
In friendship's
Golden hues.

Willows

The willow shrubs
Speak spring when
Cold and ice recede,
Warm buds dressed
In wooly cotton coats
Brownly grey.

The willow trees
That weep
Draped yellow twigs
Hairshafts
Blowing with breezes
And summer locks
Hanging with the harps of exile.

I have become like willows
Weeping before the doors
Death shut strong
And fast.
What key can be fashioned
To unlock the silence?
What window found to
Peer into mystery
The Light beyond this
Painful vale.

Like spring, hope
Dawns against the cold
Bitter wind
Stripping happiness.
My heart finds courage
To bud forth swathed
With warm memory
Goodness, innocence, peace,
A blessed gift this humble life
Willows both grey and gold.

Winter Grace ( rewrite)

The turn of the seasons
Unpredictable at best,
This cold winter wind
With snow in its arms
Descends upon the mountain valley
Bitter, cold, dry snow
Caught in whirlwinds
Swirling among the evergreens,
Swooping along rocky cliffs,
Picking us up like a mother cat her kittens
Moving us quickly against its onslaught,
Reminding our small creature selves
Might is not ours,
In case we hadn't noticed.

Thus winds of grace can grow fierce,
Blowing through our lives,
Turning us upside down
Overwhelmed, often helpless,
The gusts of this Divine author
Leaving all asunder.

But in gentler moods
This Artist lets the early snow
Settle around the landscape,
The time of brown in
All shades and shapes,
The dark blue green waters,
The occasional red bark or
Brilliant yellow,
The lingering sandy grass
Grey green tufts accented,
The last few golden leaves clinging to
The top outlines of bushes and trees,
The Artist's brush must dapple it seems
In many colored strokes.

When at last the white snow
Dominates all forms
Clings to the exposed tree's bark,
Decorates delicate branches
Tiny red berries glowing beneath,
Thus heaven makes all white,
Shining clean and wholesome
The Divine birth in this darkest time of year.

Lines Written When I was Young

Last night was spent asleep outside the tomb
And dawn was dulled from sleep within my eyes,
But morning brought the winters cold, clear light
And wisdom warmed my hands against its fright.

Enthroned before the windows of my soul
A sinner such as I, a vision saw,
How Christ was to the master of our house
O such a friend, O such a faithful spouse.

What hope amidst this dark and howling world
To know Christ loves directly some men's souls
And they in turn take up the Son's hard cross
Becoming Christ to us who are so lost.

The rags that clothed my soul, with sorrow rent
To see how this man was as Christ to me
He'd born the pain of my sins in his flesh
And loved me still, for Christ was his true rest.

Grief

Grief stalks me
A cruel hunter
Sharp and keen
In the shadowed wood
Or twilight
Becoming a deadly foe
Bold even in
Noon day sun.
An arrow from that bow sends
My heart into fragments,
My eyes blinded by
Salt water flow
And my soul cries out
In the anguish of
Loss
The remembrance
Of a suffering soul
Now free
From these deadly shades,
The hunted no more.

No, I will not let these snares
Trap me
That lurking around my soul
Make grief a grave to be.
No, I would it be a boat
To take me to that distant shore.

The War

You died a soldier in the war
That rages round unseen
The bullets to the heart
Constantly repeated
The wounds invisible
To the human eye.

You died a soldier in the war
The battleground for souls
The angels welding heavy swords
Against that ceaseless foe
The fiends of hell.

You died a soldier
A heart burst open
Like a purse filled with gold
Your love spilled here
As blood is shed in mountain
Solitudes.

I am left 
A soldier in the war
The standard bearer too
Holding brave the banner
The rest of these days
Standing lonely
In this battlefield.

The Journey

The journey from time to eternity
Is fraught with hardship,
The storms rage
Against this frail bark we sail upon
Terrors from the deep.
And I could only watch
Helpless on the shore,
As wave upon wave
Swallowed you within their jaws.

I was lost
Inside a blizzard,
When I turned around
No footprints did I see
And none before
To mark where I should go,
How blindly I walked,
Frail in tear-laden labour,
Urged on by love
Always near within
Our friendship old and true.

And when it was time
For you to leave our sight
You quietly slipped away
At dawn,
Leaving my tears to drown
This broken heart at every turn,
I needed courage
But I am not alone.

Oh, dearest friend,
From distant youth to now grey hair
I wear your courage in my memory
As a wreath around my thoughts,
Your goodness guides
My steps, I see the path
Your kindness lights
In the darkness of this wilderness.

Your sweetness I carefully wrap
Around my burdened soul
Until that time
At journey's end,
Kept safe upon this ancient road
I will run in your footprints
Gone beyond this veil,
We will meet on the other side
Again.