Wednesday 25 October 2023

Red Apples

 Red apples

I want to write a poem today
That falls upon the mind
Like the autumn sunshine
Falling on this page and 
Giving a sudden sharpness 
To the ink,
To the fibre of the paper, 
Such that a smooth page 
Is now,
A landscape of detail.
Such that a single letter 
Is now mountainous 
In its meaning.
I want to write a poem today 
That silvers the shadowed 
Corners of the mind
Like the harvest moon shining 
In the window at night, 
Large and lovely in the sky,
Making your room 
An unfamiliar forest that 
Appears only in
Your midnight waking.
I want to write a poem today
As warm as the red 
Of apples in the old
White bowl upon 
The kitchen counter.
Fiery jewels, juice filled and 
Garnered from garden
Seeming to hold 
Summer’s essence 
In sphere form.
I want to write a poem today
Flaming like an autumn bonfire,
That licks lazily at 
the secret senses of the soul
And illumines the 
Hearth of the heart 
With flickers and sparks 
Of faithlight kindled.
But how can I write 
When the world itself 
Seems to be aflame?
When the chaos of war erupts 
Again, and again, and again.
When violence screams
So loud in language 
Of hatred and pain.
When the sufferers are 
Silenced and the listeners 
So deadened and deafened 
In their overwhelm 
They weep now only dust.
When the terror tells its lies
In every tongue and we 
Fall back again and again 
Into the dance of death 
That separates and sunders and sins by 
Seeing the child, the woman, the man
As other than brother or sister of
My own blessed being and cries out
Against the simple song of 
Now, of love, of peace, that
Our souls were always meant to sing.
So how to sit with 
Meaning in the midst of madness?
I do not know.
Except to name the beauty that
Still blesses and sing the bounty of the 
Moment that is always graced. 
And try to cultivate the peace
Of Soul that slowly kindles
Kindness in all the hearts around.
Ever beginning anew, ever offering
A new beginning to all
Who see ending only through
Their weeping eyes.
And all the while to cry out
For every voice now silenced
To give the dead their due 
And offer prayer for all, 
With all, that soon
A ceasefire of sacred stillness 
May arise around the world.
That after storm, and fire, 
And earthquake, there may be 
A moment for us all to breathe 
At last and most of all for those
Whose hearts hate has consumed 
And who consume the souls 
Of others in their hate,
That they may stop
And drop their guns and guard;
Hearing at last the sacred sound
Of divine breathing, our common
Song of inter-being, then,
Seeing in each other’s eye their 
Own reflection returned and know 
In sacred sight of soul
Their own brother, their own sister 
Revealed at last, again
In the shocking clarity
Of repentant tears.
So perhaps, so perhaps,
I will write a poem after all 
That sings of peace 
and of the sacred
Power of ordinary things
And the divine light 
In which they bathe,
And from which they come.
To remind us all
Of common being
Of blessing and of
A graced present now,
And now, and now,
Abiding and ever calling
Us to begin again
Beyond the path
Of pain we travel tired
And so cry out 
The kingdom to
A world weary of weeping;
That in every choice 
In every moment 
Another way is possible
Of joy and grace,
Of warm red apples 
In a white bowl
Waiting for our gaze to 
Liven them into love
Made visible once again,
Signposts of soul
Guiding our feet into the 
Way of peace.








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