Ghazal Of A Remembered Light

"A universe simpler than the design of a seed.
One star rules its galaxy, in its sky one constant bird.
Only in my dreams does his feet touch the ground.
When I smile for no reason, it is he who etches the dimples."
From Ghazal of Love by Alfian Sa'at


Sun eclipsed, the moon of your absence,
my sundial dances to a remembered light.

My fingers read the lines of your smile,
my heart recalls all the secret metaphors.

You're the mirror, I'm the room caught in it,
I am completely filled when I fill you completely.

I smile, not so much at your words of endearment
as at the dimples that paraphrase the unsaid.

Your heart in my hands is a pound of flesh,
your heart in my heart is a pounding of flesh.

Kian Seng, the traffic light green of love makes hearts skip
but it is the amber of waiting that makes hearts trip.


Your smile, you painted it for me, an audience
of one, even your mirror is not privy to it.

Your hand in mine, a pendulum swinging,
the world around us a stopped clock.

The flounce of your head, the hair swept over your eyes
& the slow motion replay in the video of my heart.

You're the flower that gives and gives, losing all your petals,
yet you bloom summer colours in winter nights.

Your finger-tip touch, my skin trembles like the water
at Bethesda, I'm healed of the pain of a long wait.

Kian Seng, love cannot be sculpted by chisel & mallet in hands,
it is shaped by the hammer driving nails into palms.

Footprints

"He kneeled long,
And saw love in a dark crown
of thorns blazing,and a winter tree
golden with fruit of a man's body."

RS Thomas


The places
of trampled grass
where love trod,
one could mistake
them for the foot-
prints of God.

Prayer

"Most of my time at prayer, I am not so
much talking to God or listening to God as I
am just thinking but doing so with God
in mind."
M. Scott Peck

It is like a window through
which I catch glimpses
of the heavens, the stars punctuating
the silence of the night, the cursive
writing of the clouds on the wall
of the sky, the invisible scaffold
holding aloft the moon
& the sun. Sometimes God looks in,
sees the hidden world
of my bed-room, the sea
of unmade bed, the Everest
of books I have not scaled, the cliff
of curtains hiding dreams.

Glancing out, peeping in, each view
a postcard until I no longer
look for pictures but persons, then
the wall is wholly window
& I'm truly praying.

Wish Upon A Washy Star

"Yes, love's like that: just when we least
needed or expected it
a part of us dips into it
by chance or mishap and it seeps
through our capillaries, it clings
inside the chambers of the heart."
In Defence of Adultery,Julia Copus

Love is not a giant
slip into a black hole,
it is a man's small step
into the weightlessness
of an inner space, an odyssey
into dizzying orbits, an astral
knot away from home.
It is a landing
on the dark side
of the moon where craters
deeper than cartographers' ink
are illuminated only when shooting
stars explode into a million
shards of pain.

Naomi, My First Grandchild

"She caught the moment
of happiness. A butterfly
flew in the sun."
George Bruce

The shedding of chrysalis clothing,
a sudden butterfly flutters
my heart, a new life
making complete the metamorphosis
of my own.........................

Your first cry is a piping,
a tartan song with Loch
Lomond lyrics. From cocoon
of white, you signal to us
with the antennae of fingers
as if to say, "The code
of a new language is easily
broken by the cipher
of love!" Again and again
the petals of your lips
break into pollens of smiles,
the day's weather forecast
of the Spring you bring
into our lives..............

I pause to drink deeply
the nectar of this moment...

12.53 pm, 8 May 04
Spring, Glasgow

The Room

Victoria was silent for a long time. `Science tells me
God must exist. My mind tells me I will never
understand God. And my heart tells me I am not
meant to.’
From “Angels & Demons”
By Dan Brown



I’m tenant in this room
that is bigger than the house
I own, it is as large
as a garden, like Eden
before the twig of Adam’s
rib became a sprig of dragon
fruit.

It is bigger than Good
Friday darkness, its dimensions
measured by the light stealing
through the torn will
of the temple of my mind.

It is bigger than emptiness,
bigger than the unoccupied
heart, yet this same heart
when inhabited by One becomes
as large as this room.






The walls are the compass
points. The East to the West
wall is the distance graffiti
fled when it is erased
by the hand that makes
walls from the first stones
we cast at those who commit
adultery in their minds

The floor is made
for walking, when I walked
every tile, I have traveled
the circumference of the equator
but I have not reached
the heart of the room
until I walk the next
mile.

This room is located
far away, at the line
where sky meets sea, also
nearby at the line
where foot meets sea,
the near line further
than the far line.

This room is not
a dream, yet you need
to dream to reach its door
and arriving you will not believe
it is not a dream
and that the door
is the door of your heart!

The New Magician

first snow
the neglected yard
now perfect
ES Jacques

Touchdown, the wheels of the plane
flees the cold of the tarmac,
the sudden wind blows like a schoolboy’s
ingratitude, the passengers, breathing like Rowling
dragons, disappear into top hat taxis.

But you, dear Abigail, in Birmingham
are another season, the light of the first
snow flake caught in your eyes,
your dimple, like the winter moon
at noon, invisibly present, makes you a silver
shining in every crowd.

And when you speak, it is the language
of angels I hear, every word names
a flower, ivy, zinnia, campanula, tulip,
lobelia, daffodil, rudbeckia.

And when you smile, it is the smile
of a magician whose sleight of hand
has made the present past and all
the future winters Malaysian summers.

Abigail, my grand daughter, you are the new
magician, Harry is only pottering around.


Birmingham, 17 November 2005

  

  

This is not a sermon on a mount, this is a commentary on the gospel of my life, a whimper at the foot of a hillock.This is my diary, my (b)logbook, the entries posted here are the mind-stones of a journey. This is also the story of my migrations to places in the horizon for I believe there is always more beyond.
Do not expect regular postings here. There will be times when I will be like Malarial waters. And my pace will be that of a drift-wood searching for sands to wash up on. There will be no tsunamis here, fast, furious, fanatical verbal waves usually drown the boxing day quiet that we harbour.
I write as one who knows that where the shadow of truth falls on, the smoothest of surfaces can cause many to stumble. I know also that the writing on Truth's wall can be mistaken for teenage graffitti,that runes on tablets of stones are often treated with the contempt we reserve for hypermarket flyers.
My postings (writings) are also part of the journey, one word unfurls a sail, a phrase catches the wind, a sentence becomes the rudder that points me to the island where truth's flower wearing the colour of the Rose of Sharon blossoms with the fragrance of the Lily of the Valley.

Island

I would still go there
if only to await
the once-in-a-lifetime
opening of truth's flower;

if only to escape
such bought freedom, and live,
prisoner of the keyless sea,
on the mind's bread and water.

R.S. Thomas