Hound of Heaven Hymns - 2022 ~ Fair Well

Beyond reason

Lines written with one eye (my surgeon loves music) & inspired by Emily Dickinson

All matter lives when spirit sings
Amidst the atoms teem
The spinning ball aglows with love
Which reason cannot seem

The heart of all is not afar
Upon a distant shore
But set within our mundane span
Where less is more and more

This mystery lights a flickering world
Beyond our grasp and reach
A gift for all yet never owned
The music of love’s speech

journey's end

I am not well–travelled
yet fascinated by
places and maps
where oh where is
my beloved the
focus and centre
of my life
I have seen her journey’s
end in the flesh
and consigned the precious
remains to dissolution
and earth
yearning to know where
and how she now is
I feel her within
beside
on the air and
in my interior sight
memory is such a different
place and its journey
can take me in the
wrong direction
as I ride the tide
of time how I need to
know my love is
safe amidst the
foaming changing
waters of a life
that has crashed
on a far and
distant shore

till death do us part

I never realised what
this truly meant
it’s over
and in this life
you’re on your own
again

but I am no longer
I
my consciousness is
formed by
sacramental union
an ecstasy and
a constant
waking and perhaps
e’en sleeping
I am yours and
you are mine

the presence of God
and the joys of love
eternal
are mediated through

this gateway
and union

grief is a new
inadequate reality
because that is what
I wish and know
to be true
no will to change
to a world where it
is as though
you have never been
for in me you
are my always and
for ever

there is no death
I
cannot be parted
utterly lost
completely found
nothing
but the
ravishing madness of
love

descent

I walk down the
stairs seeing you
leave our home for
ever – stricken
by the fate that awaits
us all a descent
which I can never
forget and is burnt
into my happiness
disabling and souring
it for it is together
that our differences beat
in heart and soul
and now the daily
trigger of loss the tearing
pang of absence
of oblivion
every step down
I need
to follow but
please take
my hand

In life, in death ~ a villanelle of the heart

In life, in death, love fills each heart:
Enjoy its riches, treasure rare.
Endure the pain when death does part.

The eyes are locked at union’s start:
The hearts enjoin each life to dare –
In life, in death love fills each heart.

And so they form a lovers’ chart
To journey as with each they share;
Endure the pain when death does part.

Our days are changed by passion’s art,
Routines are charged with ardour’s flair:
In life, in death, love fills each heart.

The knocks of life that make us smart
Are forged as links that form a prayer:
Endure the pain when death does part.

Love’s arrow pierces as a dart
To make us one through every care.
In life, in death, love fills each heart.
Endure the pain when death does part.

Ruth

Love’s new beginning born amid the corn
From loss a journey made in faith and loyalty true
A sign of hope and trust in covenant sworn
This life brings joy and gleans a treasure: heaven’s due

So many years have passed since Bible’s view
Another Ruth brought me the joy of love’s new dawn
Our souls entwined and into one we grew
Till cruel death did strike and left me all forlorn

beached

formed in the day of a death and written in the night

The tide of my life
has gone out
never to return.

The waves that
floated my days
are no longer
crashing around
me with energy
and joy.

Instead, I list,
lop–sided
amidst the hard and sharp
ungiving shingle
of grief and the
damp sodden sands
of sorrow.

The topography of
my coast has been
eroded by loss
and the waters
have been turned
away.

Slowly, will I now
begin to change –
unknown to the
surge that brought
such delight.

O wind and weather
of life’s fortune
break into a storm
that will bring back
the magical waters
on which I bobbed
and whose surging
currents were the
grand passion of
my years!

O that they could.

A villanelle of beauty

Truth and beauty show us love’s intent:
Find and live this mystery of our sense.
Trust is all – in death and life’s assent.

Line and paint our lives can reinvent:
When art shatters fear and self’s defence
Truth and beauty show us love’s intent.

Dare I face the scorn of world’s dissent –
Risk creator’s view with no pretence?
Trust is all – in death and life’s assent.

The realm of light and heavenly scent
Transports our limits by art immense.
Truth and beauty show us love’s intent.

Reason’s chill is warmed by art’s ferment –
Brave the new untrammelled gift intense.
Trust is all – in death and life’s assent.

Heart and mind discover love’s consent,
Speaking out regardless of offence.
Truth and beauty show us love’s intent:
Trust is all – in death and life’s assent.