in the room

Now the room was still. A visiting district nurse pottered in the corner. A few family members sat at the bedside. No one else.
The Dad said: "I see trees. Beech trees. On the hill. Mary is there."
Then he added ever so softly and with love: "My sister Mary. My sister."

vigil

at half past five in the morning
the ticking clocks and creaking boards
fill the still house with their whispering
and are joined by the voices
of unseen birds in unseen trees
such choruses
praying hope in song
crying darkness now
but before long
dawn

pre dawn

Sitting with him in the stillness.
From outside the softest lyrics of the robin's song.
He has not forgotten us.

in the bleak mid winter

Holding the Dad.
A most beautiful singing starts.
From the window I see the robin.
He is on the topmost branch of the willow tree.
Pouring forth his soul for us.

confucius he say

The pseuderati should not be so dismayed that God demands an act of faith from anyone who would seek the truth about his existence. God is not alone in this exigency. Reality itself, such as it may be conceived of by human beings, makes precisely the same demand.

morning in the world

Sitting in the cosy corner of the garden that I call the bower.
From here you can't see the house.
Everything is trees and leaves and earth and sky and memories.
I am on a wooden bench.
There's an old wagon wheel nearby and a rusty plough.
Sunlight is washing through the world.
A robin alights on a branch above me.
He begins an aria.
A moving piece in tribute to a life.
We haven't had a robin in the garden for months.
When they come I regard them as messengers by the grace of God from my mother in heaven.
So I know the hour is close.

a claim to future fame

in an age that is yet unborn
will come some student of the written word
to the words that i have written down
he'll look askance at my little hoard
and scratch his head and cough and frown
then in a voice quite ponderous
my god carruthers what was all the fuss

but that night by the light of a lantern moon
he'll toss and turn in fevered swoon
he'll wake with eyes staring wide
and heartbeat pounding terrified
and cry my god i am alive