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
Woodstock Graffiti
Woodstock is a Suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. It runs down from the mountain of Devil’s Peake to the Atlantic Ocean. It is also part of the inner city, and a place of cosmopolitan life and vitality. Some of this vitality is expressed on the walls of homes and buildings in the form of …
Our House Group and the Resurrection – a celebration
Our local house group has recently completed a course on the resurrection and the resurrection appearances of Jesus. For our final session, a celebration of the resurrection, the group was invited to to share poetry, music, prayers or a quotation which they had written or loved or found. I share some of these with you. …
Two Love Poems
The Good-MorrowBY JOHN DONNEI wonder, by my troth, what thou and IDid, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.If ever any beauty I did see,Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of …
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