Olivacea

THEORY

1 Credo – Love Is Sad Worship

i The Reef

a From Thought to Feeling

From thought to feeling, mind to incarnation –

Beyond conception pathless, intricate

Mosaic in brain coral labyrinth – map met

As reef in waiting: love is sad worship, the relation

Of memory to a look, in retrospect

That random seems, but like a ’quake that gripped and tore

The patient generations, ripped with a mighty claw

My mind. How in return love? The look that wrecked

Call holy? Or instead count flawed re-integration

Of trauma to whole back slow, myriads have let

Fly, shot by an eye-flash? Or recollect

The ritual moment, as all that's left me to adore?

b Great Stars Pop Out

Great stars pop out of universes, thistledown,

Polyps, to people the Olympian

Seed bank; and in its moment every one

Thrilled, crucified, the Man whose body lost its crown

To find them. For the wage of incarnation

Is death and its own beauty. An eternity

That’s not dull is incident unstable, so uncertainty

Its soul and fabric – and a celebration

Eternal of the Maker, who is teacher, slave and clown.

A sidelong glance, a challenge made in fun,

Embodies power to wrestle all creation –

Remembered sad, seen never new in memory.

c The Cost of Living

The cost of living, writ large or small, is sacrifice –

Cost Atlas life, spatchcock eternity.

Burdens of biosphere for you and me

And universes hang, as universal price

Of searing beauties … If no incarnation,

No justice; no mercy, no joy in voice and word and book –

Nor wonder in engagement with the seismic look;

No swims with reefs and stars; no celebration

Of beauty or prayer fulfilled, no comfort for the wise

And brave, for sick and weak; no liberty

Nor hope and faith but love’s frustration.

Had God not suffered with us He had Himself forsook.

ii The Man

a I Dream No God

I dream no God: I crave the Necessary Man,

As I am growing but am not, as evolution

Scatters blue marbles across space – the resolution

Of chance in oft-repeated competition. Scan

Little green men, to spot always the One

Survival’s first fiat prescribes, who for them dies:

Ut puto deus fio! All possible relies

On time through time’s own limits, till a sun

From dust imploding flashes to reveal the Plan –

In His perfection our final solution,

Across the heavens an aero-streamer spun,

Whose universal truth then none but blind denies.

b Self Sacrifice is Human

Self-sacrifice is human; no human, absolute:

Love is conditional on love. The Man

For us relies on God, since time began,

We on Heldentenor’s passaggio – as flute

Climbs Jacob’s Ladder and descends his stairs

Effortlessly in pain. Again, again, and one

By one He bears us clinging on (as she-ape, son) –

As for this lift our forbears shouldered cares,

Pains, cultures, parenthood, back to life’s root.

On struggle Love sits natural as the Plan –

So, necessary as God and death. Who cares,

Rests cared for, resurrected and by covenant won.

c For Everywhere the Spirit

For everywhere the Spirit rules, here grows the mind,

Where justice makes all life a moving part,

And conscious life an agent, whose faith and art

Extends, beyond the generations, unconfined,

Energy’s law to truth’s own conservation

And memory’s in life. Trinity is unity;

For all is ever one: human diversity,

Limit of focus – a dance in celebration

By summer midges in a cloud of stars: behind

The random, a purposed journey of the heart;

Behind each flight, predictable frustration:

Below, the fallen – above, the joyous tragedy.

iii Pluto

a Pinpricks for the Craft

Pinpricks for the craft of nameless stars – no destination

Outwith old age, but echo’s diminished chord,

Last post and signpost, Pluto – another word

For God, in retrospect of self-investigation

In empty spaces, that Tombaugh’s Tomb* shall ride,

As I interred with my love, mine, and recognise

Ourselves perhaps as Emperor in pupa dies,

At home in our slowed garden, where we bide

New time: thought stays love’s universe and conflagration

Ever and everywhere in sparks both lost and stored,

Passing unique – beauties unsatisfied,

Hammered from time, that on the eternal anvil lies.

b All Men Are Islands

All men are islands, none entire. By days, by hours,

We outgrow ourselves into space – or die

By many cuts, mean, lazy, weak or sly.

To grow is to explore. We know our powers

* Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, had his ashes taken by the New Horizons probe to Pluto and beyond.

To extend persons together and as one –

To push the event horizon. But singularity

Through painless death? Access denied. Know energy

Shall rest conserved for coral, man and sun –

For others (and other us), the search for grail still ours,

Not ours to find.We journeymen price high

Our little worth, willing the Man to run

Back on his loving treadmill of eternity.

c He Will, if We Will

He will, if we will. Nothing but live autarky

Turns worlds on course back. With charm and smile,

Deflect time’s arrow; the juggernaut beguile

With nature's offerings of courage; the vagary

Of sudden circumstance, that a friend confounds,

With some small act of kindness redirect to straight.

(The panoply of universes we may forget,

Not will to kindness, that look of love, those wounds

Of Christ!) More pity Him who pities us, to free

Slow calm’s delight. Back – guard the reef your while!

Back, little polyp; moor your craft and wait!

Music in wind and water motion deepest sounds.

Row to kinder shores

Know Nature’s imperatives

In contrary flow.

2 Justice Postponed

i Blithe Powers Like Mating Toads

Blithe powers like mating toads embrace their justice, to drown

Their fears, whose eggs in strings perpetuate

Self-righteous frenzy … The gaols humiliate

And then debase at great expense their victims, on down

The generations; as (for the common good)

The weak, mean, poor, rejected we suppress. Outcast

Who'd welcome back on streets? Compassion cannot outlast

Repeat offence. So Justice' balance stood –

And stands doing her best, but wears a worried frown,

Paid servant teetering in a failing state,

Flailing on tight-rope between doing what she should

And can – victim among her victims of their past.

ii So All Religions

So all religions, constitutions, institutions –

Man-made! From Zeus last day's eternity

Begin … They knew their God a fiction.We

Erasmians know we are foreknown, and retributions

Foreknown will come also – and dare not say,

Lest God is named Unjust when we in fault omit

Or actions spoil, though we beside our Saviour sit …

God saves and raises all to His First Day

(As none deserves): just wish commands; till then confusions …

If all are raised, why know – why know Christ? He

Turns inside out the sky to light. To play

To hope makes you their drama, the audience your wit.

Pandora let fly

All save hope; but hope lights all.

Hope is Pandora.

Playwright for an hour

Creates a faithful audience

In his own image.

3 Ghosts

i To Interpret Dreams

To interpret dreams, three quarters of a century

I took – plus cat, loose ends and ball of string.

Paw-jerk reaction: I saw no reckoning,

Penelope had seen, had cat not got to me.

Nights, I re-wound my parents’ accident;

But from wool factory-wound, what logic for the day?

And who (not me!) would know me? Their pet’s random play

(Like creases in Creation never meant?)

Confuses dreams, but shaped me; and my allergy

To cats, I blame on careless parenting –

And ask, what ghosts as babies they were sent,

And if I played them back my dreams, what they would say?

ii Put Your Affairs in Order

Put your affairs in order: loose ends everywhere.

Leave, bid sons welcome. None share – never could,

Not being here – in my solitary good,

After life sentence opened. As last hope, they’ll in there

Surprised by joy meet you now. What’s done’s done;

For you unique, such wonders lost: sad, Kingdom’s come …

Because you showed, hope they see for themselves their tomb,

As you did. Only the blind may see their sun.

They heard you laughing kindnesses? They’ll breathe sweet air.

They read your thoughts? Let them read as they should.

Don't over-tidy. Let them have their fun.

Ask not to be remembered. Leave them to want your room.

4 Transfiguration 2015

i Creation Costs Man Tree

Creation costs Man Tree of Sin. The King must die:

Fatal his fruit, one being at one to atone

And pity. Knowing we’re not alone

Consoles, invigorates. The how from what is why.

For light unearthly on a mountain, dark

Presages; Eden garden predicts Gethsemane.

Bereavement breeds the power to love; pain, liberty –

All fleeing together in our leaky Ark;

Our idiotic sins, compassion – till we fly,

New kitted out, the land. Trees are our bone;

And we their spirit breathe, and as the lark

Compose our generation’s song. Joy sets death free.

ii Through Cash Co-operate

Through cash co-operate for cash and generation:

Work and the rest is war’s society,

Love’s tool – and not enough! For liberty

Treats neighbours equal in perpetual alienation.

Start out again from here: new covenant;

New rule of love, new rule of war, new competition;

Treat neighbour better than yourself – new definition

Of being – be self not for self, but element

In others… How dare I so prescribe, using creation

A lifetime for myself?What coward I’d be,

Not speaking truth, from fear of self-judgment!

What’s Resurrection, if not at last to God submission?

iii Vive L’Empéreur

Vive l’Empéreur. This is his season. Every year

The dragon king patrols his past green glory –

His lily pond by gravestones etched, whose story

Harks back beyond warm brackish seas, to his ancestor,

Metres across, there left to fly and rule

Great tree-fern swamps; and great, as in now narrowed thought,

Cuts diamond beauty now, that small perfection sought;

As so enclosed in age must I, young fool –

As men yet are, and greedy, till in miniature

We grow as dragons emerald: more we

Conform to elvish Gaia as her jewel,

So shall we greet each Resurrection as we ought.

5 Omnipotence

i I Trust in God and Justice

I trust in God and Justice: believe in Resurrection!

His comfort strengthens; mutual carings breed

Survival. Despise despair, when to your need

Waits condign rescue and cure for all ills and infection …

Survival to what end, and whom to please?

Cui bono Gaia, violated by greedy men,

Cozened by faithless parties, humanitarian

Departments, Pharisaic charities?

No justice, if a single soul He made wants God’s direction

To last perfection, or if He not decreed

My just demand for every sick soul’s ease!

Oh, pity God, who bears us on His nails – and then . . ?

ii The Once He Came

The once He came, to show we are alien here as He,

To encourage us. Nesting, we don’t belong –

As shearwaters on eggs in ecstatic song

And mission chatter together, celebrate the sea,

The instant duel, distance with wind and wave,

In present memory alone with Him, and duty do,

Preparing for them that follow: short lives, long journeys, cue

Eternal longings, when we His challenge brave,

Accelerating to escape velocity.

He had no home here: we may not stay long,

Not being the animals we conserving save,

Here training. Justice over aeons is His due.

iii Entangled All Was One

Entangled all was one and shall be – Einstein v Bohr –

So reconciled across the universe:

Back to the Bang, one dance that we rehearse,

All one by one. Nought known till all things known. In awe

Despite ourselves we sin and are forgiven:

Dragged kicking-screaming (music-clubbing hooligan

Or mean stay-home) to looking glass and through, to scan

One sphere of peace, content, confessed and shriven –

Each broken string, drumstick or baton in His or-

Chestra performing spaceless time.World in reverse

Where souls progress, till next the Ball is riven:

Then as the world is one, so shall be man with Man.

iv No Suffering’s Worse

No suffering’s worse than final, through my fault self-made –

So unredeemable. Faith I may make

Amends in mercy – through more pain forsake

Mean self, though dancing under lash – turns pain to raid

On luxury yet. Next-worse is gaoled release,

Great carnival of inmates of Dante’s Purgatory,

Though heaven and hell both in me pass away – to be

To be becoming, to fight to stay at peace

(His peace in glory with Him). So for us He prayed.

For Justice is the gift of life, to take

Like medicine bitter, as training’s increase

Of strength; as pride bled out welcomes humility.

v Tear Justice Down

Tear Justice down, to raise Man on God’s pedestal?

No tyrant, then, little democratic man?

All high authority (save my neighbour’s) ban:

No truth, but to confirm us petty tyrants all?

No democrat, but seeks to lead: natural selection

Or something better choose! Should any vote by right

Outvote another’s? Persuasion backed by might,

Sole judge? Is Justice just coward protection

From brute despair – or instruction to search personal

For dominance? Man answers, Instinct outspan

With Reason! Our knowing wrong needs no direction,

Yet knowing no source of right, though knowing its opposite …

vi And Knowing Too Such Not

… And knowing too such not our leader, and knows not why

He’s right. Wingtip to wingtip migrant skeins

Exchange the lead. Exhausted effort gains

Successive comfort: flights help neighbours (or they die),

But fly by instinct. Internal politics

Decides who flies next whom, but no priority

Of virtue, destination, faith. Humility

Grows (in the dark, the wind, the stormy mix)

Comradeship, generating no light where they fly:

Nature blinds on, dead-reckoning – and gains

In stress from courage strength. Good habits fix

Body and mind, on touch-down ripe for destiny.

vii Justice Demands in Joy

Justice demands in joy men with the Omnipotent

Stand purged. To Hitler, Stalin, Isis, raped Jewry nod

Distant in new baptismal names! To God,

All power – or helpless else on