Seventy

 Seventy 

I’ve seventy in my sights

A very special birthday

I thought I mightn’t reach

And often did my best

To avoid this special feast. 

Especially when younger

I tempted all the fates

Fell off some boundary walls

Bounced my head off gates

And concrete pavements too. 

But the danger really came

With a license and a car

When the faster that I drove

Brought me nearer to God

In ways I hadn’t thought. 

When not behind a wheel

Then propped up at a bar

And nearly killed myself

With wine and beer and more. 

Burning candles at both ends

Became my favorite habit

And then I wondered 

Why my health ran down 

Aged merely fifty one. 

These decades fill with pills

Exams and more procedures 

I keep the medics busy

We’re running out of lives 

Seven gone and counting. 

I’m thankful and I’m planning

To enjoy the years remaining

Embracing life more sensibly 

I’ll start the daily training. 

 Today. 

Memories

 Memories

Memories that come flooding back

Of half forgotten afternoons

In sunny Churchtown of the sixties

Happy we and didn’t know it

Healthy we and didn’t show it

Time we lavished just like water 

Slipping softly through our fingers

Unconcerned about a future 

When time grew tight and water rationed

On a landscape truly altered. 

Memories these that lay submerged 

But a foot below the surface 

Lying still for half a century 

Til the haze this afternoon 

Til summer heat in the garden

Brought back the sounds and smells

Of the times we thought forgotten

The ‘temps perdus’ no longer lost

But seen obliquely as through a gauze 

That stops our heart and makes us pause. 

Back we journey a generation

Mingling with dear folk now long dead 

But alive to us and living still

Within our heart and imagination. 

These memories that are part of us 

The ground of being that lifts the spirit

That clothes our soul, suggesting old songs

As we fall back in nodding slumber

This afternoon in striped deck chairs

To the hymn of bees in a warm back garden. 

Kingdom

 May our Kingdom come 

A kingdom without borders

That stretches sea to sea

Where every man’s a member

And every woman too

A kingdom where the king

Hangs washing on the line 

And greets the folk with cheery wave

Who meets them all the time

A kingdom that has no army

For the world is but one country 

No ‘other people’ but only us

One single happy family. 

A kingdom with a living wage

So each man has enough each day

And each man has a role to play

Time to work and time to pray. 

This kingdom’s not a kingdom

In the well known way

No border guards, no refugees 

With each one here to live and stay. 

Every man a citizen 

And every woman too

No minister for justice

Rights for all, it’s true. 

Front doors have keys left in them 

For years and generations 

Most doors lack locks and keys 

It’s a free and open nation. 

At night when coming home

Young women travel freely

Children play in schoolyards

Returning when they’re hungry. 

For no one’s hungry here

In a country where we share

No one hoards for there’s no need

When food and love is guaranteed. 

This kingdom sounds a long way off

But hard as it may seem

This kingdom will arrive the day

We live within our means.

Coin toss

 We toss a coin

We toss a coin

And take our chances

We roll the barrel

To test the chambers. 

We’re still alive

It’s so amazing

We’ve dodged the bullets

We must be crazy

To pull the trigger

Time and again

Just one wrong move

We still keep daring. 

What a surprise 

When luck runs out

We hadn’t thought

That it might. 

So in conclusion

It’s not if but when

We get written off

With the stroke of a pen. 

Well, it’s been fun

Enjoying one long day

Like an arctic flower

In breezy early May. 

I travelled far

 I traveled far

I traveled far only to return

To where it all begun

I sailed west for decades

To reach the port where I was born

I climbed the mountain 

And down the other side

I yielded to my fate

That kept me on the level. 

What is progress but a cosmic circle 

That shields our eyes in early days

And suggests we’re traveling further

Til time ordains that more means nearer. 

To see our parents with new parent eyes

To greet them as we would our children

To understand their joys and terrors too

Their lives climb out of photos no longer new. 

We have risen on their shoulders 

We have thrived upon their savings 

The sacrifices they made in silence 

Still speak softly through the years. 

So the time to pass the baton

Appears more clearly every day

It’s a joy to take part in

The relay race that starts in May. 

Twenty twenty one sounds so handsome 

A lofty year astride another 

The year the vaccines saved our bacon

By helping us destroy the Covid. 

Look

 Look at their lives 

Look at their lives

Lives of quiet charity

Admire their faith

Embraced in happy poverty.  

With only a good word

To say about humanity

There’s a gentle refuge

In the sea of my insanity. 

They can see no evil

For there is no mote

In their eyes that

Only see the good. 

Their hearts are tempered 

In the fire that purifies 

And leaves no sediment 

Of selfishness behind. 

Their’s the joy 

That filled the world 

When it was young 

Unused to sinning. 

Their’s the sermons

Without loud words 

Their’s the sweet rain

On the thirsty desert. 

I cannot argue

I cannot understand

I can only yield

To the naked grace. 

There is a future

Filled with light and hope 

But right now there is

A joy in every moment. 

And now the words 

Desert the page and 

Escape the ear 

Leaving only ecstasy. 

For you, for me. 

Now

 Now and at the hour of our death

Why is this hour so important

As we take our final breath 

Should it decide the million years 

That follow after death?

Is the final image

Burnished in our gaze 

Is our final feeling

The only one that stays?

Is the answer to the question

That decides our fate for ever?

Are all the marks depending 

On that final fateful paper?

And what about the many

Who do not get to choose

Whose lives are plucked away

Without a moments notice?

Perhaps in truth we might agree

No golden rules apply

To every case in every time 

For luck and chance to rhyme. 

There can be little harm

In embracing life eternal 

In heading west into the sun

When the race of life is fully run. 

To affirm the truly good

To turn our backs on evil 

To leave the self behind

And cleave virtue forever. 

This is our solemn dance 

When stars begun to sway

We fall in with the rhythm 

As we waltz into the Milky Way.