Towards the light

Towards the light by KR

The Motorcade

The Motorcade watercolour by Ken Riddles

Poetic Interlude XVI

‘UNCONTAMINATION’

By and large there is no charge

It’s free – as free as can be

Breath-it-in as you stroke your chin

Easy as Japanesey – that air tastes good

Or so it should

    Where are you? – Let us all know

    As we too would breath your uncontamination

My head spins – better just trust the experts (?)

As I’m told the climate’s all gone wrong

They say ‘stop and turn or it’s all gonna burn’

They say we just can’t go on –

Forlorn for long

    Where are you? – Let us all know

    As we too would breath your uncontamination

And eat the right food don’t dispense-with too soon

Preserve and prolong – we are off to the moon

Money makes the world go round – but it’s all gone wrong

So we seek another planet to rest our craft upon

Money nearly gone

    Where are you? – Let us all know

    As we too would breath your uncontamination

And what of political correctness?

Anything else to add to the list – if you get my gist?

How about – don’t call a comedian a comedian

Or better not call it ‘stand-up’ in case they prefer a chair

Comedienne now and again

    Where are you? – Let us all know

    As we too would breath your uncontamination

In danger of: “I digress…”

I should mention I would wear a mask

But is this lawful or going to offend someone?

To filter the grimy terrain and air pollution

Railway station solution?

    Where are you? – Let us all know

    As we too would breath your uncontamination

I have such a limited education – 

I’d best just sit at your feet

And listen to what ‘all gone wrong’ means

Is the global warming-warning – winning?

The battle’s begun

    Where are you? – Let us all know

    As we too would breath your uncontamination

My little insignificant self stares at the world

and it’s wealth – plastic bottles on the shelf

The rich list is fine and good if they worked for it

But perhaps somebody at least – should…

Give some away – to de-contaminate

They use their money to breath by going to a place where…

    Where are you? – Let us all know

    As we too would breath your uncontamination

Poetic Interlude XIV

WE MUST REACH OUT

When the thunder sounds

And the sky is ripped apart

The great sea roars

And the land disappears

When the volcanoes erupt and the lava spills

The storm rages and ravages the hills

The earthquakes return and the snow enfolds

All is uproar, darkness and dangers untold

We are here – yes you and I

Travelling on land sea or sky

Homo sapiens full of big ideas and plans

Facing nature and all it’s demands

We sink and don’t swim in Tsunami’s embrace

In this

We must reach out

for Amazing Grace

The unseen hand

THE UNSEEN HAND

The sun beats down on

old familiar adjective street

Later the moon showed-off it’s roundness

scaring away all clouds

by arrangement with the weather

Starry starry night so oft referred to

in painting, poem, and song

All on the back-cloth of that blue

That blue from dark outer value

to cobalt hue near the light

That’s the blue – memories are made of

That’s the blue that in partnership

with fresh air and approaching spring

galvanises the senses in smell, sight 

sound and touch

in impressionable youth

when emotions are fixed for good

It’s that night of sensing weather

that repeats the memory

for years

on it’s return

The essence of human emotion

when the experience of

similar landscape

hints at the eternal

when all is well – with feelings of safety

and just being young and interested

in all that is about us –

in activities-engagement

of one kind or another.

In moments – just moments

God placed His hand

Just to say: ‘I’m still here’

And I mistook it for enjoyment of life

in those things He had made

Like young Samuel I could hear

But I didn’t know

He stayed knocking

Until one more winter arrived

This time

with spiritual surprise

The inner storm of conflict

Passed

And eternal peace was inherited

Poetic Interlude IX

A WALK IN NATURE

Down by the slippery tree –

never searched-out why it might be

And kicking through blades of grass

I stop to stare at swans as they pass

My hands on hips my stare intact

I notice their regal look and feathers perfect

White as white can be and undisturbed 

By you or me

They take their time as Regals should

This way – then that – depending on their mood

Their orange bill-pointer at large

delves into their feathery down

And then sequentially dives beneath

the water’s Carmel brown

I wonder what she snatched

Perhaps a young insect not long hatched?

Time to trundle-on along the river side

Take-in all nature has,

maybe pull up a stump and abide

I stay there – ’til soon it’s past noon

The morning walk is over

“Be home soon”

I tell the better-half on the mobile

But I linger –

excusing myself for staying another while

Poetic Interlude VI

NATURE’S ORCHESTRA (2019)

All elements complain

Gusty wind and stormy rain

All elements complain

Creaking trees in vast domain

 

All join in the fray

Orchestral confusion in tuning-up-tunes

Strings of spindly branches too loose

To find a tight rendition

 

Leaves swaying trying to keep in time

Bullrushes stretch to see beyond

Every player rasping on each other

Each blaming sister or brother

 

From Corfu to Bahama-island-sand

Across the mighty ocean

The symphony began

Unknown instruments held in – unknown hands

 

Music symphonies as nature leaves the silence-bind

To play the missing chord that music cannot find

Mountains loom above – looking down on the band

As the sea roars it’s contribution to the land

 

As man runs to hide his head – rather like a coward

With no appreciation for this music avant-garde

He flees the sonic din he doesn’t understand

All fears rise-up to the disaster never planned

 

A song to arise – an opera of superseding grandeur

All drums of thunderclap sound

Split to give way to lightning flash

The amateur rocks will have another bash

 

While in the grassy slopes each blade tries to stand

To applaud the combination-grand

All is let loose with no conductor to command

Animals beneath will watch it on the TV of the moorland

 

They run like you and me as the storm-score takes its toll

It has strummed many strings and solo’d it’s drum roll

Another day another gig for it’s not due it’s repose

Into the night and into the next day it keeps us on our toes

 

Din after din to the untrained ear

But sophisticated composition in musical Shakespeare

It’s dying now – where has the crescendo gone?

It will live to fight another year – turn and turn it on

 

Sound recorded for posterity

It’s devastation now needs prosperity

Nature’s music always leaves it’s aftermath

It’s genre – classical or rock – music for it’s warpath

 

We know it will try again to produce another album

Tuning-up trying to harmonise – but still remaining random

Extreme sound – loud and clear and long and shrill

Remember this piece – as you yield to the awesome thrill

Divine Intervention

Divine Intervention

Superman never fails, or so the illustrated narratives would want to show us.

He comes to the rescue – swooping into a situation and exercising his muscles to save the day.

God can ‘sweep’ into a situation with ‘Divine Intervention’ .

Whether in given situations or in people’s personal lives.

Divine intervention – What is it?

According to Wikipedia:

Divine intervention is a purported miracle caused by a deity’s active involvement in the human world.

I think it is true to say that in accessing Wikipedia I have accessed a source of information that most – if not all – accept as authoritative (?). 

For the Christian, however, the first source of reference for information of this kind, is of course the book we call The Bible.

Notice – Wikipedia uses the word: ‘purported’.

Here we go defining again:

purportedly:

as appears or is stated to be true, though not necessarily so; allegedly:

Notice the injection of doubt? – ‘not necessarily so…allegedly…and the first mentioned: ‘purported’’

All statements worded in this way, are written to suit the compiler of definitions himself, or to satisfy the skeptical agnostics or unbelievers.

I guess its an attempt to please all the people – all of the time. But it fails, – as it doesn’t please me.

There are many examples of divine intervention in the Bible. God – dividing the Red Sea. God consuming Elijah’s water-soaked sacrifice, Mose’s revelation of the burning bush, burning but not consumed, the conceiving of children when it was past the age of conception for the woman, angels appearing to a bunch of shepherds, a donkey talking to a man, five loaves and two fish feeding 5,000 plus and so on. I will add an etc. etc. here.

For some these are divine fairy tales.

For the believing Christian it is truly – divine intervention, and I have listed only a few.

God intervenes in major and minor ways.

He intervened in my life in a powerful and unmistakable way. I am extremely thankful for this intervention, It was so powerful and real I will never forget it, and it is the foundation upon which my faith is built, being a Revelation of Jesus Christ.

I do not experience this the same way or to the same degree every day.

That is how it is meant to be.

God doesn’t need to intervene, or introduce Himself in the same manner, as He is an abiding presence in my life, already.

But I am so thankful for His unique introduction in the first instance.

He can intervene miraculously if He so chooses, but not to convince me of His existence, He has already done that.

How many of my friends and I would love to see that Divine Intervention again in our nation and the nations of the world. We, as Christians, have put the title ‘Revival’ upon such interventions.

Elijah once considered himself the ‘only one left’ but God had secret plans, revealed in response to Elijah’s ‘I only am left’ – complex.

God revealed to Elijah that He had reserved for Himself 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to worship the false-deity called Baal.

Are you among the 7,000+ who have not bowed the knee to false gods?

Romans 11/

…Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, 3 “Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life”? 4 But what does the divine response say to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant…

I almost feel like starting a survey and getting you to sign it – if you have experienced the divine intervention of Jesus in your life, and you are therefore ‘all-time voting for Him!’

As God intervened in the life of the world taking upon Himself the clothing of flesh in a virgin’s womb – and we have allocated this time of year to remember Him doing so – remember also that this was divine intervention – Jesus Christ has come in the flesh!

II John 1/7

For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

 

A Peaceful Christmas to all – Enjoy the Season!