Testament

TESTAMENT

  An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry

  by Pam Crane

  Copyright 2017 Pam Crane

  Thank you for downloading this free ebook.

  Forward to Index of Poems

  They Who Kiss Mind

  to whom I do belong

  to My

  to My Self alone

  My is a wide net cast

  between time

  hither and past

  Self a sense of eye

  watching

  in privacy

  the blue nerve seen

  through wax

  is ice-keen

  of uncommon kind

  are they

  who kiss mind

  risk discovery in

  having

  Angels’ skin

  the people of Light

  cohere

  behind my sight

  we are the white-gold

  aëreën

  We are very old

  Forward to Index

  The Return

  In the holy of holies

  in thick dark

  smelling of birds and stone

  my blind hand’s

  pilgrimage

  unveils

  the symbol of life

  I have come back

  my trails of

  four thousand years

  and all their images

  twist to a single

  focus, spin

  to one fine brilliant vibrant

  point

  this Egypt

  this temple

  this soft dancing-ground

  of yellow dogs

  echoing sparrows

  and buried shame

  I have come back

  in shadows

  my long strange face

  shockingly

  beholds me

  The sun and my son

  haunt me

  in the reed baskets

  jostling crushed notes, cats

  cheap azure scarabs

  ubiquitous images of my peerless wife

  where is my city

  flat hot dust a rubble of stones

  between the holy cliff

  and sun-caught sails

  trekkers

  stare from donkey-back at the gates

  of death that swallowed me

  my hymns

  my sweet children

  flying and creeping creatures

  music

  all I knew

  pilgrims cluster

  in temples, in musty tombs

  tracing my broken features in the torchlight

  following with their finger-tips

  fine rays

  slim hands of the sun

  I have come back

  like the dog to its vomit

  I cannot undo

  naivety

  cannot erase

  stupidity

  cannot abase myself before my golden boy

  weeping begging his pardon

  cannot unmake

  the silly myths of heretic as hero

  nor can I dissuade

  a thousand souls from wanting to be me

  For I am he

  stripped of imagination’s glamour

  dispossessed

  of eyes name scraped away

  in the king list bones

  vanished

  regalia food for thieves

  I am he

  trapped in another life and pinioned

  to this shock newsreel

  ancient failure

  abject penitent

  powerless to plead

  to all these enchanted eyes

  my god delusion

  Drowning in memory grasping

  my own debris

  as it passes

  Begging

  the last feather to outweigh

  my guilty soul

  Forward to Index

  The Thrill of the Chase

  I came in nineteen forty-three;

  You are a child compared to me!

  But every year we share a date

  In January; we celebrate

  Four seasons more since we were born

  In late, ambitious Capricorn.

  At eight, you’re racing in your Kart;

  At eight I’m winning with my art

  And then my writing - oh, the thrill

  Of chasing prizes! Love it still.

  But by the time you came to be

  A champion driver in F3

  I raced toward another goal,

  The understanding of the soul.

  Came the millennium, came F1

  And Pluto transiting our Sun.

  You diced with Kimi, Massa, Seb

  As I went hunting on the web

  For information, dates and times,

  For synonyms and perfect rhymes.

  One decade ended, one began;

  From Oz to Yas you were The Man,

  Jenson; you had chased and won

  Your longed-for moment in the sun.

  And I? ... was being born again

  After the years and years of pain,

  After my Jesus’ great surprise,

  After so many fruitless tries

  To greet the waiting world on-line,

  I built a Site. Entirely mine.

  Now I can hunt for distant friends,

  And show them where my rainbow ends;

  Share the excitement of this chase

  To comprehend the human race

  As tiny shards of the Divine

  Through Sun and planet, arc and sign.

  And you? ... are stepping from your car,

  Drawn to where the athletes are.

  Your F1 training made you trim

  And super-fit to run and swim,

  To cycle Riviera hills;

  You still need racing and its thrills.

  Another track, a wider smile,

  Pushing your limits mile on mile.

  What are we chasing? Money? Fame?

  The fire inside us is the same,

  Both driving - driven - for a prize

  Which no amount of money buys:

  The joy that yet again we’ve done

  Our Maker proud - and it was fun!

  Forward to Index

  1Choosing

  On my right, the voices of love and hope.

  On my left, the voices of pain and war.

  Between extremities there is so much scope

  For the soul’s philosophising ; we can soar

  On wings as angels - oh, how like a god!

  Or fall beneath the bloody boot, the rod

  Of iron, or the bitter ghosts of ice.

  Be wary, Man, for God does not play dice.

  Forward to Index

  OUR LORD’S PRAYER

  Loving, eternal Father of us all,

  Blessed and praised with so many holy names!

  Open our hearts and eyes to the light of your Kingdom,

  Inspire our minds and hands till the world of souls

  Can work your Will in harmony with the Heavens.

  Fling wide for us the door of your compassion,

  And help us to trust the wisdom of your giving;

  And as we learn to long for what is good,

  To face our folly, and make our recompense,

  Grace us with Truth:

  We all are the One Life;

  Forgiving each other in love is the end of fear.

  Through the enlightened mind,

  Through the compassionate heart,

  Through the subjected will,

  Draw us into your Glory and our joy!

  Amen, amen, amen.

  Forward to Index

  ENCOUNTER

  Mid-August.

  It is now
night.

  The little town

  Is scattered with happy light.

  He turns to her he loves

  In the attic room -

  ‘Go down

  And bring the water, darling,

  That we must

  Take home.’

  She gathers bottles, kisses him

  And leaves

  Amid the sleepy murmur of settling doves

  Under the hotel eaves,

  Managing the uncomfortable stair

  To a thin door,

  Steep paths,

  And warm velvet Pyrenean air.

  The hot day’s diesel

  Dissipates.

  The café-bars

  Reel with visiting Irish, blarney arms

  Around their mates.

  She skirts foreign cars

  Down into the main street,

  Into the swell

  Of pilgrims, past the late

  Bright kiosks, the emporia;

  She has let her feet

  Feel their own way, carry her

  Into the heart of Lourdes,

  Into the evening throng,

  A people-river in which she is borne along.

  And it is then

  Amid the images

  Of plastic basilicas, and Bernadettes,

  Candles, rosaries and grotto sets,

  Of Mary in roses,

  Mary pierced with swords,

  Mary in flashing rainbows,

  Mary on clouds

  That amid the crowds

  She is met; and entered.

  It is then she knows

  This evening is extraordinary

  Because on her walk for water

  She is one with Mary.

  The arms open wide; she is God’s daughter.

  Into the darkness she is streaming love

  Out of a double heart

  And all the people can see as she passes by

  (Could they perceive such things)

  It is Heaven’s eye

  That lights on them

  And the hands, the fingers

  That pour forth crippled souls’ healing

  Lift from her like wings.

  She has been set apart;

  And the ineffable sweetness of Our Lady lingers

  Even when she has entered the Domain,

  Lightly touching the lonely,

  Those in pain,

  The nuns, the nurses, patient volunteers,

  Giving

  Her love untiring

  To the hopeless, to the devout

  Clutching their souvenirs

  At the holy spring,

  To the merely curious and to those barely living

  The infinite healing loveliness streams out.

  Mary is in her as she fills each flask

  At the spigots, Mary behind her eyes

  In the torchlight.

  Around her the old rocks and worn buildings rise.

  She is not allowed to make an offering,

  Even to ask

  If it would be right

  To save the basilica and its crumbling steeple.

  Words come onto her own lips silently,

  ‘Buildings are not important. Only people.’

  She and Our Lady turn to make their way

  Out of the town.

  Now she is climbing steps that she came down

  When she was still alone.

  ‘Look by your feet!’

  There in the stone

  Is a perfect image of Mary and her Child.

  In the pitch dark on her PDA

  The picture is drawn and filed.

  Then, the journey complete,

  Mary is gone.

  Up in the hotel room, herself again,

  She hands holy water to the dearest of men,

  Is kissed,

  Has been, as ever, missed.

  How was she back so late

  Leaving him so painfully long to wait

  Instead of coming straight

  From the Domain? ...

  Even to him,

  In her transfigured state,

  Can she explain?

  Forward to Index

  AMOR CHRISTI

  My bond with you

  Is not the binding of a superstition -

  I have not said

  ‘To guarantee good luck I’ll follow You.’

  I do not wear your symbol as a charm.

  My care of you

  Is not the care that comes of obligation;

  I will not pay

  Attention to you by man’s calendar,

  Nor do the will of any less than you.

  My work for you

  Is driven not by greed for recognition

  Nor by the need

  To compensate for some great weight of sin;

  Because you ask me, I do everything.

  My words for you

  Cannot be pages of propitiation -

  Awe and fear,

  Eulogies, interminable prayer,

  Begging and preaching, you will never hear.

  And when I greet you

  I will not bow, or kneel, or bend my head;

  I cannot meet

  Your steady gaze that way. I will not turn

  My face, nor stay away,

  My Friend,

  From your embrace.

  Forward to Index

  A SONG TO GOD

  If I would sing a song to God

  Then I must sing a song for Man -

  And I must sing it from the heart

  As freely as an angel can.

  If I would sing a song for Man,

  Then I must sing for every Tree -

  For every leaf that breathes my breath,

  And every branch that shelters me.

  If I would sing of Man and Tree

  The song must be of Sun and Rain,

  Of feeding bird and humble bee

  Who sow the green of wood and plain.

  If I would sing of Tree and Rain,

  Then I must hymn the dancing Sea

  Who pounds the land from stone to sand,

  Whose silver gifts of cloud are free.

  If I would sing of cloud and Sea,

  I serenade the mighty Moon;

  For in her palm are Storm and Calm,

  Her children with the Lord of Noon.

  If I would sing of Sea and Moon

  I lift my praises to the Sun

  Who governs all from Spring to Fall,

  The Life, the joy in everyone.

  If I would sing of Moon and Sun,

  The silver Queen, the golden King

  Whose light reveals what God conceals

  In every heart - to God I sing!

  Forward to Index

  ARACHNID

  Love me, love my god

  I go in fear of peace I promise me

  Do not unravel him

  he at the heart of death in wait for me

  Who preys on all men's prayer

  I web the world he with my spinneret

  Up fly and catch

  Promise and arthropomorphic dream

  Star set in a man's skull

  His morning beads a myriad I count

  With him we tell

  And wait for the updraught dawn dusk underwing

  O silver god-hand I

  Make to be at the last enlaced and all

  Manner of many

  Legged unwary other me o give us manna

  Before making love to the

  Last rose o beautifully bind us

  Before the real

  Unapprehended fang of our own myth grinds in

  Forward to Index

  Water - Sky - Fire - Earth

  We came, swimming

  amid the sound of mermaid tails

  and elders chanting - the tales they gave

  of ancient drowning murmured across

  rhythms of whale song

  the whole sea hymning

  Into the clouds we ca
me

  and lost ourselves

  the sound of hills growing

  as they gave back the gift of rain

  stilled us as the heaven moved across

  our consciousness

  as known, just as unseen

  Out of the core we came

  dragons of old old story

  spoke with the sound of flame

  courted the heroes’ swords

  they gave us an evil name

  robbed us and maimed us sorely

  yet we remain the same

  guards of the golden hoards

  We came in secret

  from our deep mole-homes

  in the blinding dark

  the sound of grass growing

  of worm feeding

  gave us direction, tunnelling across

  nobody else’s vision

  Forward to Index

  1Clouds On The Horizon

  The clouds on the horizon

  Are the spirits of the Bison

  And they bellow in the thunder

  With a fury at the plunder

  Of the masters of the plains.

  (Oh the pitiful remains!)

  The clouds on the horizon

  Are the spirits of the Bison.

  In the glory of the lightning

  Is the beautiful and frightening

  Accusation of their eyes.

  (Oh the sorrow of the skies!)

  The clouds on the horizon

  Are the spirits of the Bison;

  They are crowding, they are coming,

  And the Warriors are drumming

  And the people of the gun

  Haven’t anywhere to run.

  From horizon to horizon

  Sweeps the triumph of the Bison,

  He has put his mighty shoulder

  To the cataract and boulder;

  Men will answer for their greed

  In the heavenly stampede.

  The clouds on the horizon

  Are the spirits of the Bison.

  They will spare all those who love them,

  Passing harmlessly above them -

  But the Cities of the Plain

  Have to learn it all again.

  Wail for sons and weep for daughters

  Taken by the scouring waters;

  Rage at industry and spire

  Lost to earthquake, wind and fire.

  Ah, the spirits of the Bison

  Are the clouds on your horizon...

  Forward to Index

  CONQUEST

  Sing songs of the dark font where I was named,

  And of her I seek,

  Who comes from the same chill God-house