Memory

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Misha

I was here when that chestnut was grown from a conker
and the Paul’s Scarlet was a smaller thorny red spleen,
before a time lapse could record every sunset
and replay them in salmon and rose and golden and green.

I was here when poetry wrote itself in another language
in notebooks behind the graveyard where dead flowers go.
I was here when the sea covered all the fields, and I cycled
through the ocean on a pushbike where thrift and marram grass grow.

I was here and my heart recorded the windswept dreams
of a westward gaze over waves, and foam, and fears.
I was here speaking words I now barely recall
but I still carry all the years.

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Once upon a time

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Misha

There is an absence etched in this place
of the jasmine that used to grow here
and the bark of a dog that went mad
and the innocence I insist was here, once.

There is an absence imprinted on my heart,
thick with descriptions written longhand
with a tool called an ethnograph:
blunt one end, and unplesantly sharp at the other.

There is an absence. Listening for a note
in the far recesses of a roofless cathedral
deep as a floor bass humming towards its target
humble and suddenly high-pitched, a Lancaster clearing the dunes.

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ON YOUR GOLDEN WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Misha

When things are not quite how you hoped they would be,
and the bumps in the road get you down,
may love always carry you through.

May your heart dance, your soul sing, your spirit be free,
and a smile bloom to thaw your frown,
and may love always carry you through.

May the beauty of all that was savoured, endured,
and all that remains to be seen,
spill over the cup into which it was poured.
May new shoots be plenty and green.

And wherever you go – together, you two,
may love always carry you through.

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Travel Light

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Misha

I’m spending some 4 hours in an airport terminal simply rejoicing in the laughter and tears of children.
Kids riding on suitcases.
Kids playing rock, paper, scissors 467 times.
Kids misbehaving.
Kids not old enough to understand.
Kids on parents’ lap cwtching.
One little curly haired lad nearly had me crying through the chuckles as his mum chased him…
My heart prays something I don’t understand but it has to do with life and love and hope.

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What if?

Posted on June 24, 2020 by Misha

What if, on a dopey day in June
nothing got done?
What if, pointlessly languishing,
I was undone?
What if, in an attempt to get it all right
nothing quite was?
What if my questions were left,
unanswered
in the space between us?

What if the best laid plans
were laid to rest with their fathers
where bones fill a valley
and shadows pave the way
for the coming of the Lord?

What if, in between lawn mowers
and heat stroke
I was just plain bored?

What if this day that will never come again
is a tear drop on my desk,
drying as tears do
into a slightly oblong
salty sphere of dried-up compassion?

What if my what ifs are pointless
toothless and tame?

What if the only defence I have
is the echo of your name?

And what if putting it all in writing
means too much emphasis is placed
on the fleeting function
of tricky days
once in a blue moon?

What if there are no blue moons
but only a sliver of a sickle
ready to reap a harvest of hope?

What if honesty is uncomfortable?

What if faith is not so much
a brick and mortar wall
but a dry-stone structure
of ever-setting and re-setting
fractures and disparate realities?

What if tomorrow this doesn’t matter
and I have carved an image
that refuses to fade?

What if it all belongs
and all that matters
is the echo of your name?

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About me

Posted on June 24, 2020 by Misha

You speak of me
in the third person,
of “them”
of “those”
of “others”.

I want to speak
but I am unseen,
unrecognisable
in my otherness.

An inside stranger
with no voice
for that which ought to be
out there
at arms length
but is a stranglehold,
a bite mark
in the elbow bend
of assumption.

How have I landed
in this place
of privilege
and it is better
to rock the boat
or step out of it?

Perhaps I have
become “other”
to myself.

Perhaps
I am

me.

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Morning Star

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Misha

The morning stars sang together
while the angels shouted for joy
when the Lord laid the first foundations
to all that He wished to enjoy.

There was silence until that moment
and no ear to perceive it until
the resounding voice of a whisper
made known the Almighty’s will.

The lightning bolts and the thunder,
the hailstones, the clouds and the snow
stand attentive and poised and restrained
until He tells them where they must go.

The doe and the goat and the donkey,
the freedom and joy of the wild,
the eagle, the hawk and the raven,
and the face of an unborn child.

He knows them and holds them together
in ways we cannot understand,
with the breath that carries a word
which hovers over sea and land.

The Morning Star sings with the Father
as the Spirit completes their song,
and the angels sing: Holy, holy
in an incredible throng.

And there in the midst of creation
the bride, redeemed, restored,
adding glory by praising Him
whose name must be adored.

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Seeing God

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Misha

I haven’t seen you yet, God.
I have called and searched
And asked and knocked
And waited
Patiently or at least
For a long time
With my fists clenched
And my spirit all screwed up
As my inner eyes scan the horizon
For your salvation
Favour, anointing, healing, presence.
Lord, I have bit my nails
And grit my teeth
And waited
More or less patiently
For the Lord.

And I haven’t seen you yet.

Lord, I have looked at the kids playing
Laughing, growing, holding hands
But I have not seen you yet.

Lord, I have seen the little flowers
Bursting through the pavement cracks
But I have not seen you yet.

Lord, I have seen lives restored,
Friendships forming, enemies reconciling
But I have not seen you yet.

Lord, I have walked faithfully
With the sound of nothing but a whisper to guide me
But I have not seen you yet.

Lord, I have sat with the homeless,
Packed food parcels, sent cards and left shopping outside
But I have not seen you yet.

Lord, will you open my eyes
to discern what it is that I am looking at.

Lord, will you open my eyes
to hills full of flaming every day signs
that you are at work.

Lord, will you open my eyes
to the least of these.

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BLM

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Misha

I don’t understand.
I’ll be honest with you,
I don’t understand.

You see, I have never lived that experience
and so I don’t understand.

I think I want to understand.

I say think because
understanding would mean
I would have to think
and feel and act
and I’m not sure I’m quite ready for that.

Having such a choice is privilege.

I’m told you don’t have
that sort of freedom.

I think I want to understand.

I think I want change.

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Think about such things…

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Misha

Do you have place in the depths of your heart,
where all God’s done for you has been set apart?
A little sacred room that shines with His glory
as you recall how He wrote Himself into your story?

Do you have a little box that you carry with you,
in which you keep a precious glimpse of what God can do?
A thank you note, a song of praise, a spring in your step…
Do you have a place inside where such treasure is kept?

Do you go there often or has it been a while,
since you took time to remember? I’m sure you would smile
if you went back over all the times God showed you his care
and how He is with you always and everywhere.

I’ve been thinking this week, how does faith come about?
(The faith that trusts and acts and stays and conquers doubt).
I think the answer may lie at least in some small part
in the stories we tell in the depths of our heart.

When we remember all that God has already done,
the little things as well as the great victory Christ won
and recall how He did not spare His precious only Son
and how He says He will complete the work He has begun

then maybe we can trust and pray with confidence today
that God is really for us in a very special way
and will continue to be glorified in all that we go through.
Now there is an excellent thought for you.

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