whispered words

seeking

the hush and the joy of you

the depth and the breadth of you

all consuming, all inspiring

peace that passes

any level of understanding

love all-giving,

hope all-healing

faith - the hands wide open -

not an end in itself

but looking to a different ending

which is actually

full of beginnings

the slow work of God

Words from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new. Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-- that is to say, grace --
and circumstances
acting on your own good will
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

love bade me welcome

Used in welcome service

arms wide open

You were not perplexed

when I dragged my muddy feet along your carpet,

pulled my broken suitcase through your door.

You were not put off

by the dirt under my fingernails,

or the stench of my unwashed heart.

You did not frown

when I jumped all over your furniture

and pulled all the crockery out of your cupboards;

you saw me coming –

muddy, broken, rejected –

and leapt up, beaming,

running to meet me

arms wide open

and cried “Come in!

I have been waiting for you!”

I’d sent no RSVP in response to your invitation,

but you waited anyway –

staring over the distance

between us, watching

for that first small step.

And then you ran, feet slapping

hands clapping, clothes flapping

to meet me –

arms wide open.

You gave me new clothes to wear,

mended my suitcase,

helped me clean under my fingernails. 

You applied the ultimate stain remover

to my heart – grace

pure and undiluted,

applied with just the right amount

of loving kindness,

washing away the embedded dust

and darkness, transforming

the stale dullness and beginning

a new, re-created brightness

in me, until I could no longer

imagine

what I had been without you.

(C) Lucy Mills 2011

Used during welcome service.

Image: source unknown

so often

Reblogging a poem from a few years back. ..

so often I forget you

you are my sun

the blazing light

by which I see

you are my air

the very breath

by which I live

so often I forget you

you are my water

you bring life

to barren ground

you are my food

you give me strength

and help me stand

so often I forget you

you are my dying and my living

my breaking and my mending

the reason for my being

and you always remember

***

I'm having some time offline for a while, hence the following posts have been scheduled.  This means I will not immediately respond to comments - but please do still comment and I'll be pleased to read them on my 'return'!  I'll choose the winners of the giveaway in a couple of weeks' time. For now, I take my leave.

Image: mine (Pembrokeshire)

the monster lying low

This week is M.E Awareness Week.  I feel a little inadequate to write something, so I'll repost a poem I blogged here in January 2008, as a reflection on my own experience.

there are so many ways to describe you...
although none is enough

you are a monster lying low
dormant at times, merely draining
at other times a beast intent 
on destruction

oh how I wish I could be rid of you

you are a cage with bars unyielding
shrinking inward, and I am trapped
squeezed and desperate to escape
this feeling

oh how I wish I could be rid of you

you are poison in my veins
you fill my body with leaden weight
motion becomes an effort
for me now

oh how I wish I could be rid of you

sometimes, you have been my teacher
causing me to notice what I would never
have noticed without you, known
without you

but oh how I wish I could be rid of you

now.

For a more prosaic account of my experiences, try here.  Obviously this is written two years ago, so it's not entirely up to date.  There are those who have far more severe CFS/ME than I do - see here.

scallop-shell of quiet...

Sometimes I long to nestle into peace...it takes some discipline. Clearing space not just in my life, but in my head and heart - an attitude that chooses to let slip the things of busy-ness and focus on quiet beauty.  Journeying from hurry into sabbath, into the softness of accepting grace.

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,

my staff of faith to walk upon,

my scrip of joy, immortal diet,

my bottle of salvation,

my gown of glory, hope's true gage;

and thus I'll take my pilgrimage.

Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1552 -1618)

impossible

It would be impossible for me

to hold you in my hands,

nor would I wish to.

Even the idea of you is uncontainable,

mind-bending, and yet

so beguiling,

that he who is before all things

should want to walk beside me,

take an interest in such a fragile

heart as mine - 

It would be impossible for me

to hold you in my hands

although I try to understand

you better, not to squeeze you

into my poor definitions, but

for you to define me.

You are vital to my existence

sustaining each thought, 

my every breath -

It would be impossible for me

to hold you in my hands -

rather,

I am held in yours.

Image: mine

stretching the muscles

Today have been trying to exercise writing muscles gently after a few days busy doing other things.  Focused mainly on a couple of poems which I'm hoping to submit to competitions - not that I've ever won a poetry competition in my life, but still, it's worth a try.  Still pondering over my next poetry collection after  Fragile World - can't decide whether to do the same again or  to approach an actual publisher.  Unlikely to succeed - poetry is a hard sell.  But I'd like to start collating some poems for it anyway, including ones from this blog.  Any favourites? I want to use this one to raise money for the women of the Congo - those who are victims of the awful atrocities and sexual violence that we wince to hear about.

I am also trying to get to grips with water and sanitation again - this will be my fourth or fifth re-write.  It's not proving easy to find a market but it's a subject I think is so important.  Seriously, neglecting these things has a knock-on effect on all areas of development.

Now, however, I think it's time to wind down.  Have another crunch-click-cringe remedial massage tomorrow.  As usual, I need it, although I have been trying to re-invigorate my stretching regime to compliment the pummelling this week.  Sounds such fun, doesn't it?  But I actually enjoy the fact she's actually getting to the problem places - it's a relief more than anything.  Finding and recognising the problem enables us to actually work at it, in whatever area of our lives.


image: mine

thoughts in poetry

I've realised that two of the poems I wrote in celebration of National Poetry Day in October are complimentary to this week's theme of Christian unity.  So, I will re-post them here together, to add a different kind of voice amid all the prose of the last few days.  The first poem merely celebrates the joy of togetherness.  The second revolves around the problem of sharing different views.

Walk with me

walk with me

when friendship feels

tangible, faith

touchable and able

to wrap us in a blanket

when the wind is

brisk, and carries

flecks of winter

walk with me

when love's adhesive

does not stick and hope

is landlocked, what then?

then walk with me

though fingers graze

sharp-edged stones -

one thing is known.

Together is better than alone.


Lucy Mills, October 2010

Viewpoints

even the words
have different meanings.
we collide, perplexed,
thinking we agree
when we disagree
and vice versa

it's hard to tell our
stories, in understandable
ways, we have different
starting points and certainly
different endings
yet there are moments
of recognition

in the end,
we start from
the beginning, placing
pre-conceptions aside,
allowing space
for explanation,
treating each other
respectfully.

tenderly.

hopefully.

Lucy Mills, October 2010

Images: mine

National Poetry Day: home

A poem a day...day four

Home

in the beginning

home was a place.

it had walls.

memories punctuated

every stone,

a chair could sum up

an entire history.

there were points

where remembering

became more acute,

more timeless.

a table, around which

we sat, carried dozens

of dinners, breakfasts,

finger paintings.

then, the still frames

began to move.

home became a variable –

a sense of leaving

and returning

and we became

unhitched, searching

for re-beginnings.

now we softly settle,

and once again give

the word a certain

geography, but

acknowledging

what we have learned.

home is not the place,

but those inside.

Today is National Poetry Day - time to think about your favourite poems, why you love them, and to share them with one another. This year's theme is 'Home', which is why I have used this topic here.

Because today's poem is, yet again, written only today, it inevitably is more 'churned out' than finely crafted. Parts of it make me wince. It's not what I would want it to be. Nevertheless, despite its sketchiness, I hope it holds a hint of potentiality.

Do you like poetry? Why? Why not?

Any favourites?

Day One: walk with me

Day Two: viewpoints
Day Three: seasonal haiku

Wednesday: seasonal haiku

A poem a day...day three

The leaves are turning -

natures quiet remembrance;

summer's gold farewell.

The mist of my breath,

hinting at winter's return.

warmth well-met with cold.

Perhaps that's two poems...but never mind!

Day One: walk with me

Day Two: viewpoints

Image: mine

Tuesday: Viewpoints

A poem a day...day two

Viewpoints

even the words
have different meanings.
we collide, perplexed,
thinking we agree
when we disagree
and vice versa

it's hard to tell our
stories, in understandable
ways, we have different
starting points and certainly
different endings
yet there are moments
of recognition

in the end,
we start from
the beginning, placing
pre-conceptions aside,
allowing space
for explanation,
treating each other
respectfully.

tenderly.

hopefully.

Day One: walk with me

Image: mine

Monday: Walk with me

A poem a day...day one.

Walk with me

walk with me

when friendship feels

tangible, faith

touchable and able

to wrap us in a blanket

when the wind is

brisk, and carries

flecks of winter

walk with me

when love's adhesive

does not stick and hope

is landlocked, what then?

then walk with me

though fingers graze

sharp-edged stones -

one thing is known.

Together is better than alone.

The trouble with writing a poem a day is that most poems take more than a day - to brew, mature and be constructed. To be finished. So I have to present this first one of the week as just that - unfinished, unmatured, incomplete. For starters, I want to give it another stanza - probably at the beginning. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and inspiration today - that missing verse must emerge later. This is the first draft. There are bits I like, and bits I know need work.

It's hard offering something that is unfinished for viewing, but I wrote this poem for the purpose of being today's poem, so here it must be. All I ask is that readers respect its rawness. Every poem this week is likely to be a work in progress.

So, walk with me.

a poem a day...?

Thursday is National Poetry Day here in the UK (this year's theme: 'Home'). This makes me want to engage is some blog themed poetry-ness. (Or should that be poetry themed blog-ness?)
A poem a day, perhaps? A Monday to Thursday poetry fest? Can I set myself the challenge of writing a poem a day? And what will it be like? And will I manage to balance it with neurologist's appointments and nutritionist phone calls and JW bible studies and other stories?

Perhaps they could be short and sweet:

Dear doctor, can I make it plain?
I'm not sure I even have a brain.


Or fanciful:

Oh! Ephemeral beauty hanging evanescent over a dreamless sky...


...or maybe not.

Still, it's a thought. For those writers who have recently confined themselves to prose, or like me, focused on non-fiction, a little poetic probing may be of benefit (and possibly painful, by the sounds of it).


Dare I suggest it? Not necessarily all in keeping with the theme 'home', but certainly classified as some kind of poem.

Watch this space, it may just become poetic.

image: mine

wishing

I wish
I could more easily grasp
the things I long to know and understand
I wish
I could remember all the things I have learned,
and not have to learn them
all over again.

the child

garlands of light lining the streets
every window an invitation
to find a new present for giving
a new incentive for spending

a flurry of parcels and wrapping
of ribbons, rosettes, of artificial
pine, of the search to find
the perfect gift for those
who are impossible to buy for…

stepping back now, out of the shopping mall
into a different land and time
where love finds its touchstone
and he who sprinkled stars in the sky
sleeps under that sky tonight

a child, one child, the child
who holds the promise of all our futures
tightly in those tiny hands
the mystery of eternal, divine
in the depths of fragile humanity

angels punctuate the sky like tear drops
falling, tears of joy, that baby boy
the one they have come to proclaim
to those in the humdrum, the ordinary,
the miracle of the light of the world
born in the darkness of night

born for them, born for us
the King of kings and Light of lights
hope for all the world.

on a day of remembering

Remembrance Sunday, 2009

giver of hope,
walk among those
who see no possibility
of a life unscarred by violence

bringer of light
sit down beside those
who see only darkness
and have barely a candle flame

bestower of love
carry the ones
who can no longer walk
without stumbling over grief

sender of peace
come to those
who walk continually
on the shards of war
that litter our world

give hope, bring light, bestow love victorious

send peace
O God of peace,
on this our day of remembrance.

***

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

- Lawrence Binyon, For the Fallen

if I should

if I should fall
will you catch me
before I hit the ground?
and if I should hit the ground
will you ensure
that there isn't too much breakage?
and if I should break into a hundred pieces
will you gather up the splinters
and hold them to your heart?

if I should stumble
into an unknown territory
will you give me a light to lead me?
and if it all goes black
and I cannot see
will you hold onto my hand?
and if I feel alone
and cannot sense your presence
will you love me, weep for me,
die for me?

yes.

raiding my heart

Last night I read through an old copy of Fragile World, to remind myself of its purpose and vision (for more details, click here). I reached my goal of £500 at the end of last year, and wanted to start my next project, Out of Darkness (its working title), this year. Out of Darkness is proving in many ways to be more challenging, not least because I am starting it completely from scratch. I did write poems specifically for Fragile World, but many were compiled out of those I had written before.

I wanted Out of Darkness to be not an anthology but a collection of 'poems and prayers for a broken world' - a resource for personal intercession, if you like. I hope to use it to raise money for the abused women of the Congo, perhaps through Tearfund, although I will wait until it has taken more shape to look into this further.

Waiting for inspiration isn't going to work; I have slowly begun to put pen to paper and raid my heart, but it isn't easy. I need to perpetually remind myself of those words that so propelled me in the first place - there is always something you can do.

The following is one of those I wrote especially for Fragile World, coming out of the original grief I experienced on the 'breaking of the walls' of my heart. Dear God, don't let me forget it.

Torn

her tears –
flames in the heart
of God, burning –
she,
wonderfully made
but treated as
disposable,
to be used, and then
used up.
ripped apart,
torn inside and out
splintered like a
shell, under
an iron foot.
violated,
her soul turns to ash.
no more heart music –
they have broken her strings.

(C) Lucy Mills 2008, Fragile World