Tag: mypoetry

For One Day Only – particularly the 11th

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The Pioneers by Stephen Broadbent in Ellesmere Port, just off J9 of the M53.

For one day only

I thought I’d have some fun with numbers
today, (or is it 2day?), 11.ii.21, one month,
ten years after 11.1.11 when we launched
Headway with an image of one by one
forward-peering, prowed-standing pioneers
coupled for growing enterprise like two sides
of a coin, one complementing the other,
one complimenting the other, tied and tethered
in affection and imagination. One by one,
the perfect team, the first eleven,
the prime number no one can divide.

So it is, the perfect eleven, the perfect spell,
vowel, consonant, vowel, consonant bound
in rhythm marching time, beating heart time,
one two, one two, two one, one by one partners
like Noah’s passenger list and those first gardeners.
There is a second eleven, the mourning break,
the eleventh of the eleventh, when we remember
the one who stood with one and fell, along with
all the fallen ones, tragically flat lining
when one stood against one as betrayer,
the twelfth man making even eleven odd.

©David Herbert, 11/2/21

Headway is the title of a leadership programme I have been involved with.

A Gut Reaction – what beautiful stories are

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I had to resort to poetry to respond to the video produced by the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) of the Beautiful Story. This is a film designed “to encourage and enable evangelicals to engage and contend in discussions about human sexuality”. It left me cold, horrified by the voices that have gone unheard.

Beautiful stories are

well spoken. But with respect, Sirs
your Beautiful Story so well told
is lop-sided, a one-sided story
lacking the beauty of the round.

Your voice sounds beautiful.
It is, as I said, well spoken. But,
big but, there is a violence
to the voices which go unsaid.

Voices of ones you corrected
with your prescriptive text
drown the muffled sounds
from the closets you locked.

From basement cellar, closet
and the chimney stacked chamber
their voices died, but scratched
on the wall, blood red, their words

I loved too. Their words, their voice,
truthful, plaintive, defiant or proud
make the story. There is no beauty
apart from where love is found.
©️David Herbert

I hesitate to give the link to CEEC’s Beautiful Story because it is not as beautiful as it is cracked up to be and because it is not for anyone of a sensitive disposition. The Church of England has published resources for Living Faithfully in Love..

Ox-faced Luke: a poem for St Luke’s Day

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44231259_10217343419320451_8457308505865453568_nOx-faced Luke,
his gospel yoked
to that load bearing
beast of burden
ploughing on
through life’s muddied field

Ox-bowed Luke,
his gospel bulging
muscle of sacrifice
for the lost, the poor
and stranger still
their inheritance of earth

 

Luke, author of the third gospel, is often symbolised by a winged ox, one of the “four living creatures” of Ezekiel 1 (and Revelation 4). The ox represents domesticated animals. Symbols for the other evangelists are: (m)an(gel) for Matthew, lion for Mark and eagle for John.

 

First Steps

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The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn
which shines brighter and brighter until full day. Proverbs 4:18

Who knows where first steps lead?
We feel our way through death’s vale,
beyond the pale to dark corners,
blind alleys, a way hardly taken,
through dark nights of the soul.
This is the path of the righteous,
the path of Missio Dei,
the path of light to dawn.

Punctuating the night

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Waking in the middle of the night,
say, midway between lying and rising,
just then, is not always curse and cue
for raking old worries to no effect.

just sometimes we awake with a blessing,
precious memories shine our consciousness:
not one, but two lights beam in darkness,
a colon before rest.

where do they come from? they travel far
but arrive fresh. they head straight for me
because only I will know the pair they are.
they come for me, a blessing, a colon before rest.

both were recalls of what was barely
registered at the time of their birth.
one a scholar defining remembrance of Him:
the other, of trouble taken to meet

a paedophile prisoner released
from his sentence. the one the very point
of the other, remembering a man lost
in the darkness of our collective sleep.

After the colon comes the sense, the blessing.
There are some things only we will know,
only alight when they come to see us,
treasure to take us to rest of night.

Patara Beach

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Patara

On this beach sound and sand we lay ourselves to rest:
an annual punctuation, a colon and breathing space,
kindling and basking delighted by overlapping waves
of welcome: a silver thread in tiredness’ tapestry.

Tourists and turtles take their turns digging to cool sand
for new generation; young engineers make their marks
and build playful fortifications without calculation,
fear or hope of castles not withstanding nature’s storms.

Backed by wholesome sun I chase my shadow along the shore.
The load lightens. My trace disappears. Crabs sidle home.
A stranger nods a Merhaba in my direction looking out
another place and pace: life less dash or need for colon.

A far cry comes from the harbour, long silted and stranded
in history and imagination. “Phoenicia bound?”,
the ship’s master’s call to those piering their next purpose
and horizon, and those otherwise beached and bedraggled.

Luke, a passenger, packs a gospel for this new ark
with his two by twos, his hims and hers, his young and old,
his Jew and Greek, and Paul, his complementary pair embark,
Turks off Patara beach, where the sun shines after storms.

PS. References:
Merhaba is the Turkish greeting “hello”.
Luke and Paul changed ships at Patara.

And so, with the tearful good-byes behind us, we were on our way. We made a straight run to Cos, the next day reached Rhodes, and then Patara. There we found a ship going direct to Phoenicia, got on board, and set sail. Cyprus came into view on our left, but was soon out of sight as we kept on course for Syria, and eventually docked in the port of Tyre. While the cargo was being unloaded, we looked up the local disciples and stayed with them seven days. (Acts 21:1ff)