Moths

I have seen their graveyards
By the naked bulbs
Where their husks are paper thin
Their scales are dust
And their broken faces lie
surmounted by a
Honeycomb of empty eye.

Moths mistake
the lamplight for the moon
And steered by stirrings older
Than the stars,
Orbit till their spiralled flight
Singe incandescent
On the light.

In my long, uncertain, navigations to the heart of God
Keep me following the ancient truths
beyond the bright, alluring vanities of men;

Remind us of simplicities:
Of confession and
forgiveness,
Of the mysteries of calling,
Of the doubts that keep us on our knees
equipping us with meekness for
inheriting the earth.

Protect us from the counterfeits that kill,
Whose brightness is a trick of distance, not illumination.
Protect us from
Experiences without fruit of change;
Emotion without integrity of will;
Words whose claims outweigh realities.
Visions based on wishes more than needs.

Consider our moth soft frailties;
The smallness of our understandings
The weakness of our wings
The labour of our flight.
Steer us gently, wisely, slowly;
Steer us starwise, moonwise, sunwise,
Steer us Godwise in the dark.

(c) A Mc N

Sunflowers

Rain like rifle fire,
flattening the grass;
ricochets from roof tiles
in a hiss of spray.

Barefoot on wet ground,
both in pyjamas,
I held him in my arms.
We spun the umbrella in our hands,
watching the rim shed spiral streams of molten silver in the air.

"Daddy, it looks like a sunflower"
he said.

So in the rain, under the deep impenetrable grey of cloud,
on a day of unseasonable cold;
we stood in pyjamas,
making sunflowers with only imagination for the sun.

It surprises me how long such
flowers last,
Scenting the memories for many years.

Let me too,
child in my father's broad embrace,
sow gardens of beauty
From seeds of faith and imagination;
even when the sun seems far away.

(c) A Mc N

London sunset

(c) A Mc N

Long pause

I read it in a field,
The dry stubble scratching against the leather of my boots
And the big wind playing chess with the clouds.

And my head was full of the normal rubbish;
Trying to forget what I was all too easily remembering
And trying to remember what had long since forgotten.

So I walked only slowly and I read some old notes
Of things that had once been important
But had somehow faded to the distance.

And I read about the power of pause
And the need to stop, to reconnect
Inward and upward until reality flows again.

So I watched the wind play chess once more
where the white cumulus pieces leapfrogged across the sky
And in my inner wilderness the long pause triggered the move I'd longed to make.

Pawn to King.

(c) A Mc N