Love and the Island of Caves
Love and masks in an urban area
in the time of covid-19 lockdown
We have come to this place
where we are real to each other only
Facing each other in Plato’s cave
Everyone else a masked shadow
passing. In the lilies above our bed
the flowers fade and there are only the spaces,
macabre faces in a slow dance of fear.
Most real to us are the shafts
of sunlight in the bougainvillea
mixing crimson with potato-bush blue
the chirruping choir of sparrows
and the chew-chit of the collared sunbird,
as lost as we in their new freedom.
Voices of neighbours unrhythm our morning
Laughter across the yards invade us
dislocated nouns and verbs fall about us,
diffusing. Memory and pain pour from us
as we eucharist at home.
Strangely we discover a life we once knew
The machine hums and fabric and cottons colour a table
Pens and pastels wash through paper
Meals are conjured and senses savoured
And we play.
In the streets we haste past strangers
in the dawn glow
Momentary recognitions
At dusk images of our children and theirs
arise and fade into untouching loneliness
Another day
Our friends die and eddy into the silent clouds
Touching and tasting puts the world under siege
Now it is only you my love
For this we had chosen each other
In that distant time of freshness and promise
For only our love serves and saves
In this island of caves.
Bob Commin 2020
Soul Food
Cheryl Gammon, a mathematics teacher, wife and mother reading the poem See his blood upon the Rose by Joseph Mary Plunket (1916)
Dorian Haarhoff poet and storyteller shares a story during these covid-19 days.
Pentecost Prayer
Come O Fire and Flame Of divine Love And burn away the chaff of our lives Speak to us that we may speak to others Enlighten us that we may enlighten others And set us on fire with love for one another through Jesus the Christ Amen
A meditation on Four Quartets by T.S.Eliot
This is a meditation on Four Quartets, a long poem by T.S.Eliot. I use the beautiful words of Eliot from the four poems, Burnt Norton, East Coker, Dry Salvages and Little Gidding with silences and the repetition of a key line in the poem as a mantra – At the still point of the turning …
Ezekiel the Prophet
I recently completed the Book of Ezekiel on-line with my Housegroup. We have discovered an interesting way of working together, with members themselves doing some research and reporting back to the group. I had studied Ezekiel at Theological College but had never looked at the last Chapters of Ezekiel which is a prophecy about the …
The Season of Creation: Taizé-styled Meditation & Cop 26
Dear friends and followers of my blog, I hope you have been surviving the pandemic and are well. Within a number of Christian denominations it is the Season of Creation when the focus is on the ennvironment and climate change. I recently produced a Season of Creation Reflection for our Taizé group focused on Cop …
One comment on “Pentecost Moments”