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
The Ruins of District Six Exposed
Daphne, my wife came home from shopping in the Garden centre recently and told me that on her way home through District Six she saw that the top soil of the fields had been removed exposing some of the ruins of inside walls of the old houses, and that I should take a look. The Apartheid Government in 1966 declared District Six a “whites only” area under the Group Areas Act of 1950. The area was eventually totally bulldozed and became a shameful scar on the landscape. New businesses refused to move into the area, and those who attempted to …
Amazing Women
The Amazing women in my life This is Women’s Month, when in South Africa we are questioning why there is so much violence committed against women and children. The incidence of violent crimes, sexual and verbal abuse committed against women, is horrendous. This set me thinking of the amazing women in my family life and within my circle of friends. My mother and her sisters were orphaned in their teens and were sent from Kimberley to a Salvation Army home in Woodstock, Cape Town. She was very proud of the contribution the Salvation Army made to her life. One of …
Song of Songs
A Reflection on the Song of Songs I want to reflect this evening on this passage from the Song of Songs, which I find so beautiful and sensuous in its language – celebrating young love.The voice is that of a woman anticipating the arrival of her lover, who is leaping and bounding over the mountains and hills in his haste to reach her. He is a deer, a stag – he is at the window peering in. There is such a spirit of vitality and sexuality in the passage, and with their intimacy and connection Spring comes and the fields …
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