Hound of Heaven Hymns - Sonnets and other closed forms

Notes to eternity ~ a sonnet

‘Tis commonplace for music to be played
As background sound to daily chores and rounds –
The wordless realm part hid, a mindless aid,
To counter dull neurotic task filled grounds.
This topsy turvy truth is rarely proved
By quest for why we’re here and what we’re for.
We wander through this life as if removed
From what is real and lasts for evermore.
My love you are the music of my life,
And still beyond the grave you dance and sing –
Completing, holding, sharing every strife
As mind and soul resound as one to ring
In music’s ecstasy of which we’re part:
All falls away – we’re claimed by love’s true heart!

(written on a train and in an Ibis Hotel in London at breakfast)

The heart of all matter ~ a sonnet of love

(written on a train and in an Ibis Hotel in London at breakfast)

We’re given sight but blind to nature’s praise,
Our human path is shared and never ours –
As formed in dust we have a song to raise
Though self–possessed and blessed with many powers.
We sing alone estranged from earth and sea,
Like gods we sit on thrones and claim the right
To rule o’er all and take the owner’s key:
Exploiting, laying waste, imposing blight.
A song goes on below our busy noise
As mountains, rivers, birds and beasts sing, too,
Of glory, wonder, awe – creator’s poise
Beyond all meaning, turning why to who.
It’s always time to learn anew our part:
Through prayer where mind is met and changed by heart.

A sonnet of melting worlds

Written on a train to and from my great grandson Max’s
baptism at Farm Street Church in London

The hard edged rocky world of grit and stone
Is washed and formed anew by seas whose strength
Erodes, destroys, yet builds a land regrown
By motions changing earth’s frail height and length.
And time, who eats our days, a plastic realm,
Grants but a glimpse of self and human power.
Its truth beguiling – yet will overwhelm –
For nothing stops the passing of each hour.
We have a melting truth for flesh and blood:
The one in whom we all dissolve and die –
Each fleeting life is borne upon this flood
Into the arms of love to whom we cry.
The end will end beyond my words and dreams
For nothing’s always what it never seems.

A sonnet of unremembered living

Written whilst looking out to sea at Aldeburgh

Is memory all we have in human worth?
Our earthly days are short and soon forgot.
If blessed, we’re whole and free and loved from birth
Whilst knowing, too, the pains in human lot.
We sing and dance our lives in toil and play,
Forgetting cares we share a common path,
With others we find joy and hope each day
And lose ourselves: become another’s half.
Yet time extends beyond each mortal life
And, if forgot, what meaning can remain?
All gain seems loss when struck by reaper’s knife,
The human realm erased by death’s domain.
Creator’s call beyond the endless tracts
Brings home redeemer’s triumph over facts!

Beauty's benison ~ a sonnet

Does habit take away our freedom true
If unaccompanied by risk and chance
Which comes from others and their point of view
Ignored so often after fleeting glance?
This life of limits feels like prison’s cage;
It’s more we want with neighbours serving needs,
A world where self is writ on every page –
My eyes are shut to those whose difference bleeds.
Yet life can well anew in any form
Through change that meets us all in certain grave.
Our bumpy fragile lives beset by storm
Are precious notes on love and beauty’s stave.
This hope is ours in life though short or long:
The singer loves us – we’re his endless song!

The puzzle ~ a villanelle of the questioning life

Life questions who am I and why’re we’re here –
There is a path as through the years we grow,
The soul takes thoughts into a myst’ry clear.

With early dangers soon we learn to fear
The world and people might become our foe;
Life questions who am I and why we’re here.

The wise and loving give us hope and cheer,
They share the riches of this life to know
The soul takes thoughts into a myst’ry clear.

We tread with care by edge’s drop so sheer,
Disaster’s near and joy can turn to woe.
Life’s questions who am I and why we’re here.

There is a light by which we all can steer.
A course through time’s relentless deathly flow:
The soul takes thoughts into a myst’ry clear.

Eternity is now and ever near.
It beckons from above and from below:
Life questions who am I and why’re we’re here –
The soul takes thoughts into a myst’ry clear.

Proportionality ~ a sonnet to weigh our sins?

The call to holiness does not appeal
To many as the road to form our lives:
Ambition, riches, status are so real,
A lure to make the most as prospect strives
To gain the comfort, ease, that wealth affords.
Yet love and mercy with this disagree.
We seek the paths which selfish gain applauds
But others lose and falter – never free.
This fact of sin is not a system clear
Which we can manage, barter, make a deal,
Add up our sins to pay a price less dear,
And carry on, no demons called to heel.
The way of God weighs not our foolish ways
In scales we’ve made to justify our days.

(written in Pizza Express before Verdi’s Macbeth from the Met, NY)

Leaves ~ a cyclical sonnet written in autumn

The canopy of leaves is branched above,
They bud so slow so fresh in vernal green
To shoot like fingers in a glove
And form the panoply of glory seen.
Through wind and rain and sun of summer days
They make a tree alive for coming years;
Then comes an end with glowing autumn blaze:
Their work is done, their beauty falls like tears.
This yearly cycle teaches us new truths:
Our days, like leaves, are short but beauty filled
Because we’re loved by power which nothing proves
Save life is all when death has all life killed.
The leaves of life might skitter at our feet
But they’re a sign that dashes bleak defeat.

(written in Côte Brasserie, Covent Garden, before a performance of Parsifal and dedicated to Sayed, the kindest of waiters)

The eye of the needle ~ a sonnet

The heavy laden camel is too wide –
The narrow alley’s fit for just a beast.
Logistics cannot cope with physics pride
In making most of all we want the least.
To thread a needle takes a steady hand,
An eye needs eyes that lock the gaze to sew:
There is no deal or bargain here to land –
Truth must change us if we want to grow.
This makes a problem when we find we’re rich,
We’re judged already by the things we own;
Possessions cause us all to drop the stitch
That makes us poor for ever and alone.
The eye’s true sight is found within each soul:
In poorest freedom find we richest goal.

Ascension ~ a sonnet of love's power

The power that lifted love incarnate high
Is ever here in human life and days;
It brought the Christ to us in baby’s cry
And bears the pain on every cross we raise.
Redemption runs through time like annual rings,
The marks we see when mighty trees are felled,
It’s woven through all passing time – and sings
Of glory’s strong and gentle hands – we’re held
From birth through death to love beyond the skies
By him who conquers all that we most fear.
Here’s power that claims and heals that we may rise
With him who shares each agony and tear:
The gravity of earth and death reversed
In heady truth and hope and joy immersed!

The dissembler's sonnet

The sheep and wolf are warnings to us all
As those who pray and prey on those they think
Are rivals and as such are doomed to fall
By gossip, lies and so to envy’s brink.
Betrayer’s kiss speaks surface love and care:
Oh see how much I love you, dearest friend,
But feel the chill of steel – your heart will tear
As you are conquered and your threat must end.
For so it is in every place and age
That treason smiles whilst wielding dagger’s thrust,
Dissembler’s cloak makes cool the seething rage
And covers hatred’s bile, securing trust.
This life reveals that some we trust as true
Are master’s of self’s pride and heartless coup.

A sonnet of severance

The stone that skims the water needs such speed
To bounce and hurtle on before the plunge.
I feel like this on days impelled by need –
Detached and hard unlike the grief–filled sponge
Which fills and weighs my heart with my lost love
Who burns and fires my days as ever was.
Yet now both close and far – and way above,
The links are frail, no certain cause – ’because’.
So now I live in two worlds, mine and hers,
And both feel strange – uncharted, depths unknown.
The focused life and light for ever blurs
To open myst’ries lifting earthly stone:
There is a part than can endure apart
Because true love is love that fills the heart

Sonnet of sacrifice ~ 1

The word we use slips quickly off the tongue
For sacrifice is safe with costed price.
This risk is well but nought – no heart is wrung –
True blood is spilt in choice and roll of dice.
Our worlds collapse when faced with death’s true toll;
Our lives are never truly ours alone,
Much more unknown must change our human goal
Oft hid in loss and pain, each silent groan.
Thus disappointment is a blessing true
To switch our gaze and thoughts towards a light
That only shines when self to others flew –
And makes a vision bright in darkest night.
Now sacrifice brings life whate’er the cost
And brings abundant gain when all is lost.

Written on the train to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition in London

A sonnet for the over engineered

The world is full of nuts and bolts unseen:
They’re made by us like bricks to build our power,
Not welded but entwined, a mean machine
To join and hold by screw through every hour.
They’re strong and last much longer than our days,
They also blind us to the way ahead
That lies beyond the narrow selfish gaze,
The world we build and prize until we’re dead.
But life surprises – holy love doth call
In body’s beauty warming mind and heart
To sigh with spirit’s breath in raptured thrall
When every soul awakens with a start.
The engineering self is doomed to fall,
Love’s realm is truly ours when found in all.

A sonnet of stasis

The world’s so different when we stop awhile,
Our days in motion set a pace of haste.
It’s only when we halt or sit, we smile,
And many people feel in life we’re chased.
This pace is set by deadlines we must meet
And then all else must scramble on aboard;
Life hurtles on – each day will ne’er repeat,
So spent this life by price we can’t afford.
The pulse of life needs measure so we rest;
Such space gives fuller meaning for our souls –
A view and thoughts to challenge and to test
The health and purpose of our daily roles.
Beware the dust of a stampeding herd
Which blinds us all in mindless vision blurred.

(written on a train between London and Rochester late at night)

Just a thought? ~ a sonnet of retrieval

There comes a thought that stops us in our track,
It will not melt away or have an end:
It haunts and troubles – mind and soul look back
Retrieving, haunting, power which must descend
To change us, challenge and to make us new.
Whate’er the pain, discomfort – cost what may –
We face and learn despite our fear – what’s true
Is changing us as living truth today.
And then the memory from the past is torn,
A dream whose poetry now to prose is turned
And something strange and new is somehow born.
There is no way to backtrack now: we’ve learned
That mystery’s power is more than present’s now,
We’re held and made by hope’s eternal vow.

The Skein ~ a sonnet of war and peace

There is a skein that runs through life and time,
A hidden web set in this world of ours,
Though mostly hid, it’s writ in human crime.
Each self will lie – combine in evil’s powers –
It’s often hard to call, e’en harder own –
The way we work makes cover for a show.
Denying, frightened, all the hate that’s sown
Is formed anew in reimagined foe.
We’re set against each other yet we’re one
As creatures born to live a life of love.
There’s always hope – the daily rising sun
Tells of a power that comes from high above.
Lift up your eyes from selfish means and ways:
Let peace abound, redeeming earthly days.

(written on a train between Rochester and London)

A year's mind sonnet

This death I face of which I’m most afeared
Has power and transformation unalloyed.
The daily round is strange and dark, oft teared,
As remnant life unfolds now unenjoyed.
When once our time was shared, our lives conjoined,
And brought to life through love – this flesh and blood
On earth no longer meets – our days purloined.
My compass, chart, seem lost in deathly flood.
And yet this day you died is shared with Mark,
His wingèd lion soaring to the skies,
To see the light that penetrates the dark
That all may see a hope with no disguise.
The truth sets free a limitless domain –
For love is all and always will remain.

25 April 2026 ~ The Feast of S. Mark

Sonnet of sacrifice ~ 2

Walls of blood and lumps of entrails raw,
The invert mountain hanging close and low
Where God instructs a death in horror’s awe
Before the knife is stayed from father’s blow.
The call of sacrifice runs long and deep
To expiate the darkness facing all;
This blackness beckons – all time and matter reap –
Its presence real in holding us in thrall.
By contrast, light reflected changes every view and sight:
The sky below, the ground above our feet,
Our ordered world remade in visions bright
To challenge all as myst’ries cost we meet.
Short life is here displaced in wonder’s clue
This world is open to a view more true.

Written after a visit to the Anish Kapoor exhibition
at the Hayward Gallery

The struggle ~ a sonnet of shared pain

We breathe – we live but nothing’s simply true –
We’re open, subject, to a path uphill
So daily struggles mark our steps and slew
The course and goal we hope we can fulfil.
All life’s a struggle – nothing ends till death
Snuffs out the powers and strengths we vainly boast
When taking all for granted in each breath
And fail to see who truly matters most.
This struggle is a blessing in disguise
To free us from ourselves when lost in self.
We falter, fail to find the greater prize
Of joy and peace, love’s gift in common wealth.
The struggle’s never mine alone but shared
By He who suffers with us, Love’s face bared.

(written in Pizza Express before Verdi’s Macbeth from the Met, NY)

A sonnet of terms and conditions

We set our terms on everything we do,
Conditions seem to make us who we are.
All this makes safe, we think, our world where few
With power exploit all lives both near and far.
‘To gain and ne’er to lose at my expense’ –
We’re taught these jungle rules right from our birth;
My interests frame this self of mind and sense
As people live in fear of loss and dearth.
This globe is blessed by untamed weather’s bite:
Beneath the skies we face creator’s hand
So even clouds and storms bestow new sight –
Conditions, terms, are set by love’s new land.
Life’s ways and means are never truly ours
In mystery’s sweet unfathomable powers!

A sonnet of shuttered light

With open eyes we learn to see our world,
Its wonders and its woes are plain to see
 or so we think that like a flag unfurled
Life’s meaning found in signs and symbols free.
But sight is set by compass points not shared:
My way and purpose lit by glory’s sun
Which burns with ego’s rays, so no truth bared –
Just darkly seeing – danger’s loaded gun,
Blind certainties abound with doubt and fear,
A cocktail bound to blow with reckless power
And fill our lives with pains that bring a tear,
Despoiling love and peace’s fragile flower.
The shuttered light of human darkness bleak
Reminds us in our strength we’re truly weak.

(written in Côte Brasserie, Bluewater before seeing Fatherland at the cinema)

A Christmas Cantilena

(based on the chiastic structure of Pietru Caxaro's 'Cantilena' c. 1470 in Maltese)

Across the years a song has sung
Formed in our hearts from yearnings deep
For one to come – as hope has sprung –
That love will shepherd us like sheep.
Our searching, fighting, lying tongue
Cries out amidst the tears we weep.

Into our flesh comes the light
Present and clear in our sight
Babe in the straw from the height
Making our human night bright.

Dawn brings the day out of night
Wonder and truth bring love’s right
Challenging power and our might –
No more each other to fight.

As angels, magi, fade away
In passing years the story grows
But still we fail to stop the fray –
We change God’s song to human prose
But now today this love we pray
Our worldly fear and hate depose.

A sonnet defying Babel

(written on a train between London and Rochester)

This teeming world is full of many tongues
Whose meaning is unknown to me and you.
We live apart like steps or ladder rungs
Each needed for the climb to see the view
Of meaning spanning difference deep divide –
A bridge to make us strong in faith and hope
Where fear is conquered, no one’s life denied,
All held in space – no need for steel or rope.
Give voice and sing the joys of many ways
Whose value runs through all and weaves a web
So fine, a network of our lives and days
That time and tide is blest in flood and ebb.
Our neighbour speaks as blessing true and free
To make us one in greater mystery.

A sonnet of deception

(written on a train between Rochester and London)

Deceived, I think that much is in my reach –
Our human powers of mind and will are strong.
We build – and hold that truths we learn and teach
Are certain, ours, possessed and can’t be wrong.
We know the errors of our human past
But now have learnt there’s more for us to be
If we invest in self this world will last
Enough to give us pleasure full and free.
That’s what we think we want but is it wise? –
A free for all with nothing out of bounds
So progress feeds our pride and blinds our eyes
To worlds unknown where love’s sweet music sounds.
The world I know is never mine – and dies
Yet love is more – and for this each soul sighs.

70 ~ a sonnet of years

(written on a train returning from London)

Three score and ten has such a number’s power
As one to reach or pass in human years –
And when it comes it matters not the hour:
It’s just a moment filled with cares and fears.
Fulfilment lies beyond a sum of time,
Each second blest and precious on the way,
Where love’s sweet music’s notes with self can chime
And change the dross and labours of each day.
There’s more to say for life is judged anew
And fame and chance with wealth is put in place
As backcloth to the stage with heavenly cue –
For all of us to walk with promised grace.
The life we have is more than flesh and blood –
We’re born for glory borne on endless flood.

A sonnet of sight

(written on a train returning from the National Gallery Siena exhibition)

Where does the artist’s world begin or end?
Are limits sweet or obstacles to break?
Compulsion is creative spirit’s friend,
Possessed by power whose strength all frailties shake.
The empty space must beckon us to mark
And make a world which none of us can know
Where darkness shines as bright as any spark,
Familiar forms now radiate and glow.
But none of this can happen on its own –
We all must empty self with open soul
To risk our pride in avenues unknown.
Creator lover gifts to us a role –
To be the sign of all that is to be
That through fresh eyes we all may come to see.

Overleaf ~ a sonnet of surprise

(written on a train to London)

Each one of us is curled within a leaf:
We see with eyes much greened by nature’s self
And yearn for so much more than mortal’s brief.
We search and sing to write on future’s shelf,
Amassing wealth and knowledge on the way.
Some gain a stature overbrimming death,
With reputation famed e’en to this day.
What is the truth and nature of this breath?
We first must breathe a risk beyond the air
And lose ourselves whate’er the cost may be –
Yet find a spirit’s meaning, fresh and fair,
Our leaf bound self and world could never see.
Let’s rise and dance, dive off the leaf we own,
Into the joys of everything unknown.

A villanelle of promise

A poem especially for those outside the Church
and those who feel banished or abused

There is a voice that speaks to every care –
It’s heard in storm and calm when hearts do burn:
We’re loved beyond what matter’s form can bear.

Sweet music sings to all in freedom’s air
Despite the pains and doubts of daily churn:
There is a voice that speaks to every care.

Each day and moment offers us to dare,
To risk and lose ourselves, to change and learn,
We’re loved beyond what matter’s form can bear.

How certain seems the world of glamour’s stare,
It’s hard to look away and from it turn;
There is a voice that speaks to every care.

Love’s spirit meets us in our breath as prayer –
In presence held, a gift we do not earn;
We’re loved beyond what matter’s form can bear.

Life’s meaning seems so rich and rare
Yet lies in all our hearts and lives that yearn:
There is a voice that speaks to every care,
We’re loved beyond what matter’s form can bear.

chronophage

a sextet for Holy Week
(the form is based on John Dowland’s
setting of the Anon Time stands still)

Can one week bring death’s untimely end?
We all must die yet love eats time in one who comes as friend:
To take each hand, enlighten mind and fearful heart –
For his journey through these days takes each and every part.
Time eats us up as dust but now is eaten up in turn:
Love’s final days of mortal life with timeless glory burn.

Yet this truth is hid in every age,
Our hopes and powers write selfish stories on our history’s page.
The foal and palms lead on to scorn and howling crowd.
Can I deny my fear of pain and death’s thin shroud?
We cannot bear the shrieking hurt of nails and parching thirst –
He did – for us – time’s death is changed, and every tomb is burst!

A cavatina of release

Another rail trip – to the Proms – another poem

There is a pain that never leaves this world –
An endless blaze.
It runs through every life and levels all
Yet dogs our days –
And burns so hot and smoulders long and deep
In every phase.
There seems no point nor respite from its sting –
As on it plays.
Its game is up when time and space do end
As love’s true bliss takes each of us as friend.

A cavatina of music's power

On the train home from Mahler’s 3rd

Are music and the mind the same, ‘in tune’?
The soul says no!
The notes are heard in time yet evermore
Their echoes flow
Enriching every age on timeless shore
Where love doth grow.
The beauty of the heart and mind and soul
Sing sweet and low:
This music makes us one in mystery’s power –
All thoughts released from limit’s self and hour.

A sonnet of one direction

Can this be true – that life is but one way –
A start to finish line quite clean and bare
In stark succession set – like night to day?
For that’s the way it seems to mind and care:
We build our lives and set our clocks to form
The irreversible and destined path –
Our bodies frail and finite to death’s storm
Which breaks upon us like avenging wrath.
There is another view where sums add up
To make a different total of our lives
Including death’s strange call to drink and sup
Beyond, behind, within the myst’ries hives.
These hum and swarm with spirit’s life that sees
All lives and loves and loss as ever bees.

A Christmas sonnet of decision

If God indwells with us in every way.
The seraph’s song, the star we all can see,
Here’s yet a mystery set in human clay,
A life – and death – that calls us more to be.
His birth we feast and dance to every year –
Much less his death and new life prize and blaze.
Perhaps the cost and pain of love so clear
Involving risk and faith in this world’s days
Makes every question bring us down to earth
To seek a sure and certain world to grasp
Unchallenged by the starlit stable birth –
Whose life goes on beyond his final gasp:
Each soul must choose the way of life or death
And live eternal truth in every breath.

A cavatina of mercy

In every age our human hearts do burn
With vengeful ire.
The flames of hate arise from shame and fear –
Destructive fire!
We lose control and sense of others’ needs
In situ dire;
The scars of war maim every life on earth,
A funeral pyre.
Sweet mercy come to us from heav’n above
And fill our broken lives with healing love.

A kyrielle for peace

Our hearts are battlegrounds within
With minds set firm on self and sin;
Love opens up its treasure store:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

The untold loss, ne’er to be known,
No names in letters set in stone,
Cries out in hope to make us more:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

There is no plan, just simple care,
To honour others and to share
Our lives and world – in love outpour:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

The secret miracle of life:
Forgiveness heals and ends our strife.
It remakes lives, shuts hatred’s door:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

There comes a time when all must choose
The path to walk so none should lose,
That justice, mercy, truth, can soar:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

Sweet peace is that for which we’re made –
Through trust and kindness unafraid.
This earth can touch another shore:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

A sonnet for Lent

Our way is always strewn with rocks and stones –
We sometimes see the path with carefree ease
Ignoring others, deaf to suffering’s groans.
The world cannot be read ourselves to please,
Each day has cares we must embrace aright
And recognise our powers to use for good.
For human living is both gift and plight:
So sharing love involves the phrase ‘I should’;
By taking up the cross of saviour’s way
We’re ne’er alone and part of heaven’s bliss.
The barren land is where we’re led to pray
And find the bridge of joy o’er death’s abyss.
The wilderness is real and brings to sight
Our world and lives remade by truth and light.

A sonnet that sings

What story does the music weave this night
When senses stilled by dark and velvet black
Caressed by sound evoking inner sight
And set to run in mystic visions’ track?
A cloak of wonder, worthless to a world
That sets a price on human life and breath,
Descends and settles like a cloth unfurled
To take us to a realm beyond our death.
This journey strange is made and seen in dreams
When rest is active in imagined ways
Our fears are faced from deep remembered streams
Drowned by the cares of pressured urgent days.
This music sings us from our selfish cage
Into the freedom flown from flesh and age.

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

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

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.

Love's Depths ~ a villanelle of water and life

God stills the storms of waters’ might:
The spirit moves to set us free.
No sea can quench love’s fire and light.

Creation brings our day and night –
From chaos deep we’re brought to be.
God stills the storms of waters’ might.

Our hearts and minds beset by fright –
From war and want we’re never free.
No sea can quench love’s fire and light

Christ comes to save us from our plight,
His grace is our salvation’s key.
God stills the storms of waters’ might.

From depths of death to heaven’s height;
God’s life is nailed to hatred’s tree.
No sea can quench love’s fire and light

The dead are raised by Jesus’ right:
Call on his name – on bended knee.
God stills the storms of waters’ might:
No sea can quench love’s fire and light.

For Peter Futcher

A Villanelle for Lent

Take now the path of love and truth to grow:
Find time and space, let go of self and pray;
Choose life and pass beyond the things you know.

Our love is but a bloom with seeds to sow –
Each life is frail and formed in mortal clay:
Take now the path of love and truth to grow.

Uneven days embrace both joy and woe,
Our thoughts and feelings change – they cannot stay.
Choose life and pass beyond the things you know.

When truth is found we needs must face the foe
And challenge wrong in moral cause and fray.
Take now the path of love and truth to grow.

No inner peace is found in comfort’s flow;
Alluring pleasure does not win the day;
Choose life and pass beyond the things you know.

The ‘yes to life’ involves our saying ‘no’ –
A line is drawn by living love’s true way.
Take now the path of love and truth to grow.
Choose life and pass beyond the things you know.

The Wedding at Cana

The empty jars at Cana’s feast
Surprise with joy when wine has ceased –
A mother’s plea to God’s own Son
Brings wonder when his will is done.
The wedding guests, the passing hour,
Must wait upon the Saviour’s power:
As servants trust, the jars are filled
With water plain – yet steward thrilled.
He hails the groom for richest wine;
The gift of love from guest divine.

A Christmas lullaby for the soul

Metre: 88 88 88

Stella

This baby born in distant years
Is yet a brother to us all;
God’s love and joy – and pain and tears –
Begin in time in form so small.
Sing, sing all people of the earth –
For endless joy in Bethlem’s birth!

A helpless babe; th’Eternal Word:
This holy birth confounds all sense.
The angels sing – their music heard
By those whose love has no pretence.
Sing, sing all people of the earth –
For endless joy in Bethlem’s birth!

The keenest mind and simplest heart
Are taken to the stable bare
Where humble love eclipses art
And reason’s need to challenge prayer.
Sing, sing all people of the earth –
For endless joy in Bethlem’s birth!

The peace of every age lies here:
A child to grow and save each soul.
For we belong: God’s love so near –
Our broken selves made one and whole.
Sing, sing all people of the earth –
For endless joy in Bethlem’s birth!

Wind and Fire ~ A Sonnet for Pentecost

The power of nature flows through every day
– it lights and holds each moment’s thought and move
Yet humankind has walked illusion’s way
By making self the point of all to prove.
The winds bring change and life o’er all the earth
And fire ignites a danger rarely tamed;
For we are not the masters making worth
Creation’s life – by us forever framed.
The fiftieth day of Easter changes all
As fire and wind bring power of love by grace:
The spirit burns and blows to seek our hearts
And minds – so meaning’s purpose finds the place
In human wills inspired by nature’s arts.
We live beyond ourselves for evermore
In Spirit’s breath fulfilling every law.

Candlemas ~ A Sonnet

Two turtledoves are offered to the Lord
As firstborn son is given back by Law;
The ancient covenant brings lives outpoured
In simple gifts, the offering of the poor.
Through Temple courts the infant Jesus’ light
Is recognised by Simeon’s vigil eyes
Waiting for God to flood dark Israel’s night
With glory – and with light, the Gentiles’ prize.
Many will rise and fall in God’s new age
As Jesus, God’s anointed holy one,
Brings judgement as foretold in scripture’s page,
Salvation’s grace bestowed in Christ, the Son.
So take the flame of Jesus’ holy birth
And walk by faith God’s gift for days on earth!

A Christmas Sonnet of the Dispossessed

We know the place where Jesus Christ was born
As God took breath and laid his head on earth;
Yet power and people mixed their love with scorn –
And soon the babe takes flight from Bethlem’s birth
Escaping sword and jealous murderous fears
To find a refuge in a distant land.
We learn that joys of love are bathed in tears
As Christ our brother holds us by the hand:
The newly born becomes a man despised,
For living out the truth that conquers loss;
He wanders homeless, humbly – God–disguised –
And brought to shame and death on Calvary’s cross.
So, all displaced by war and want are one
With God – who shares all pain in Christ his Son.

Two Church Sonnets

THE GARDEN

Where nature walks with humankind as one,
God’s tree of right and wrong is honoured there;
The town, the home and all our work is done –
Set free by love and faith and Spirit’s flair.
To find this garden takes us all our days
If we resist the gift and hope of Christ.
From leafless tree, nailed limbs and godless maze
His death redeems our riches overpriced.
Now is the time when human life can flower,
When will submits to love as germ and seed,
So toil and care will flourish in God’s bower
And moment’s prison from ourselves is freed.
The healing stream of Paradise can flow
When human cities like God’s garden grow.

FALLING MUSIC

Tumble down all sounds and notes of heaven
And rain your truth o’er all the faithless earth!
May music be the means, the end, the leaven
Of mortal clay whose life, whose death, whose birth
Is shared by God in Jesus Christ the Son –
His humble music reaches out to all
To bring us home when all our days are done
And saves us from the selfish curse, the Fall.
Sing, sing aloud with joy all dust and clay
For staves hold notes that shall for ever ring
And earthen pots resound the eternal day.
Night’s dark is ended when with Christ we sing:
The Spirit is the song which brings us home
To Father’s house, celestial music’s dome!