I heard a song of silence today,

A sound of peace and healing

And while I think of a wholesome Way

To soothe the hopeless feeling

 

Brought out in me by Evil’s plotting,

I see with joy, how it’s not me:

Though all around would seem to be rotting,

This new Strength has set me free!

 

I did not create this, the golden hope

That sings my heart, raises my soul – 

This can only come from my One True Father

Whose greatest glory is my soul made whole!

Dusken gloom,
gloaming a-glimmer
with cold light,
silhouetting the cypress.

Winter-bare trees claw the sky.
The mist is deaf to their cry.
Moisture and life in the air,
But less to the roots, down there.

Highveld mist, a mysterious thing,
That heralds the onset of spring,
Is less like the Europe I know
and more of the Home I did know.

Golden autumn sunlight
On a day of bright heat,
contradicts the dark-blue sky.
Still-green trees, their leaves
flecked with later gold,
cast darker shadows 
than the sun can warm.

Caterpillars hang like ornaments
by threads of their own making;
At night the spiders come,
huge, unpleasant walking.

A late poppy blooms
Unselfconsciously beautiful, blessing, pure
Sarah saw, and snapped

Somewhere,
a tall, dark stone wall
has cracked!
Starlight and air 
can drift through, into
the unimaginable darkness within.

Filth, stench, funk and black dust
fill the cold, dark space behind that grim, demon-carved
Idol's wall.
Now exposed
to the antiseptic touch of fresh air,
the Vileness within cannot abide.

The boil has been lanced.
Now healing can happen.