there’s a quiet in this house

and it’s whispering your name

like a wilderness within

betraying who we each became

foxes sing on the radio

a secret echo of those days

when silences were weighted

by your heart-revealing gaze

winter comes so quickly

they say it has its beauty too

oh, but, winter comes too quickly

unbidden memories of you

excerpt from “winter”

It is a quiet place, a hospital room. Our freedoms for now altered. The noise of the world noticeably subdued. Whispered truths so often drowned out are at last heard as meant.

Day is dimming. A husband watching in the half-light as his wife drifts further away from him and further still.

“I guess we’re just in the winter of our lives”, the husband says, watching the woman he’d known for so long and seeing himself.

“Yes, that may be true”, the doctor replies, holding the silence. “But there are many beautiful days in winter too.”

If only. If only the days weren’t so short.

from the inside looking out

it’s like they’ve never been apart

from the outside looking in

well, its difficult to chart

their clasped hands in his pocket

the night as light as day

“I just feel so alive” he says

“I think I’ve found my way”

excerpt from “silk and silence”

It is a good gap.

The gap between reality as it is and reality as we are sometimes able to perceive it.

There is more to the world than we are prepared to see. More to ourselves than we are ready sometimes to admit.

Perhaps it just needs someone to take our hand, someone to lean in to, to help us reimagine the world and ourselves in it.

Is the present a done deal? The future predictable?

The gap says not. We will become. However it feels for now we will become.

little dancing girl
moving with the music inside
see her float and twirl
in the arms of grace
little dancing girl
moving with the music inside
you are safely held
in the arms of grace

she has not learned to fear things unknown
there is no darkness in her mind
she sees no sense in hiding from herself
no good in watching confidence unwind

excerpt from “dancing girl”

where are
we going?

what is that?

when will we
be there?

what happens?

when do we
stop being
like the kid
in the back
of the car –

a thousand
thousand
questions
on our lips?

is it gradual?

this trading
wonder
for worry?

better to
hunker down
eyes
wide shut?

just get on
without
asking why?

or is it
true?

these cynical
souls:
loved
beyond measure?

these twisting
lives:
works
in progress?

is it true?

what if it
is true?

so still he stands

strong arms open wide

tracing with his fingers

things long buried inside

when did you become so wise

where did you learn such trust

making known the hidden things

but not quite enough

excerpt from “hidden things”

Good Friday. A cross words, cross-wards day.

He was not two yet and his mother had taken him to church. They were sat upstairs by themselves, glassed in, hearing but not able to be heard.

Downstairs holy men spoke holy words. Or so was thought. A picture of a cross projected onto a beautifully bare wall. Upstairs was an earthly mess: toys and half-eaten sandwiches, a mother straining to hear…

Listen, he seemed to say, his stubborn little body pressed firm against glass seen sometimes to contain. Listen, his strong arms held out as if reflecting a two-thousand year old image.

What truths are hidden in the little ones? Who put them there? Who, if any, will listen? When will what is hidden become known – known enough so as to put out all fear?

I hide so much it’s obvious

I’m waiting to be found

I’m screaming so loud

I can hardly make a sound

I’m falling slowing through the air

with both feet on the ground

and I can’t remember why

I won’t remember why

excerpt from “so far”

Kids love to hide. They love even more to be found. “Here I come ready or not!” the sing-song word enough to make them giggle in glad anticipation.

Big kids are loath to hide but cannot help it. What would be the consequence of saying what was felt? Of daring to do what needed doing?

Big kids are loath to hide. They loathe even more to be found out in their hiding. What to say? How to be? Where to go from here…? And yet we will not (cannot?) avoid the waiting. To be left to our hiding: a future too bleak to bear. And it will not be. It is written: it will not be.

time to let it be

time to let this restless sea

we’ve been sailing on

for far too long

time to let it be

sails are coming down

sails are lying on the ground

all tired and torn

all wasted, worn

sails are coming down

excerpt from “broken line”

Time is tricky.

Time is not always or entirely malleable.

Time can be the catalyst for change we did or did not need.

Back to the wall time.

Head over heels time.

Sit down and weep time.

Stand up and take note time.

“There is a time for everything” a cynical/philosophical soul once said (cue the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes) and maybe that’s right. The trick is perhaps in being able to recognise time’s demands – its pleasures and its pressures. And to respond in such a way as does not diminish what is dear…

evening lingers long for now

and there is nothing to fear

warm winds gather song for now

and there is nothing to fear

sunlight holds us sway –

mem’ries fall away –

bathing right and wrong

and there is nothing to fear

excerpt from “for now”

For now is a phrase once learned from a friend.

For now. It sounds kind of provisional (“let’s see what we can do for now“), as if there is something more and better to be had at some future point, and that for now is simply a stopgap.

But.

What if for now is actually temporal in the best of senses. What if for now is a plea to live – really live – in this moment and to realise its worth.

Breathe. Drink deeply of this moment. Warm winds gather song for the now we are living. And there is nothing to fear.