Poems 4

I have been falling, falling through all eternity,

Through countless lives and worlds

And as I fall I have reached out, in lonely desperation,

For something to hold onto, to save my fall.

That fragile branch called Faith could not hold my weight

Thin and unformed, it was broken easily.

The stone ledge of Hope crumbled at my touch

And even precious Love could not save me.

So I fall, on and on forever.

One day, one time, in one distant lifetime

I shall find that thing onto which I can hold.

Then I shall grasp and clamber onto a thin stone ledge,

And climb a spiral staircase worn by ten million feet.

Up and up I shall crawl, for days and weeks and years

Until I come to a rotting wooden door on rusty hinges.

Then I shall push it away in frantic desperation

To find myself standing high on a mighty tower

So shall I jump and spread my wings,

Soaring through the sky on the fresh warm air.

Then two men in the fields below will look up at me

And one will say, with awe in his voice, ‘There he is!’.

I once dreamt of being within a stone tomb, perhaps that of Jesus, since the stone shelf was devoid of coffins or bodies. It was strangely comfortable and I felt no fear. As time progressed I became increasingly aware of the intricate details in the carved stonework. Eventually I realised that this was not a dream; this was a reality, not one that I had known before, but a reality all the same, and I knew that if I did not wake in that instant it would be my new reality, that my old life would come to an end. And so I awoke, but with a strange regret that I had now lost that special place, perhaps forever. But I also knew what that place was; it was death, and I no longer feared it. And so I went back to sleep, found myself again in that subterranean place, climbing stone steps and standing in a pure white light into which I threw myself. And so I learnt that there must be no fear in destiny.

Tears, a pointless emotion,

Enough to fill an ocean.

Love, a flawed devotion

Still driven into motion.

Some seek to control you,

Others to be controlled.

Many seek both,

But most are confused.

When young we seek a dream

Of happiness with the one

But it is only a sweet illusion

The thing that drives us on.

For without such hopes

There is only despair

Until with age we learn

To live without illusions.

Freedom from things, from fear, from war,

Thoughtless of hate or love,

With no need of caring or being cared.

Freedom from life or death,

As a bird flying, seeing, being,

With no want of words or reasons.