Ruminations of a Homesick Poet

I

brain-dump my feelings

and my thoughts

and my worries

onto this page of white. somewhere,

someone, somehow,

has managed to create that

same recognizable sadness in me

that I once felt 

(was it a decade and a half ago?)

when I left one country for another,

leaving all my close friends,

that same gasp of sadness

that I felt on the plane after takeoff

and I realizing that I am now heading

into a life all on my own -

fully supplanted were the ties, the roots,

the friends, the familiarities,

gone at least for now that familiar

sight of pleasant landmarks on the way home

and what is home now

what is

what is home

when all I feel is rootlessness and the 

ruthlessness of a migrant's raw homesickness.

I will soon move on to the next chapter of my life,

and will have to bid farewell to all I have known.

how it hurts

I cannot have what I have always had, forever,

I can be where I have always been, forever

I cannot have those who were once my friends

always near me and always friends, forever,

aargh! this I know but how it hurts

how it hurts to let go

of that branch

I have always held, close to my heart,

how it hurts and blisters

my bleeding heart.

I am left alone with my thoughts,

or shall I call them emptiness,

and loneliness, and melancholic homesickness,

that homesickness of one 

who constantly longs for home

but belongs nowhere,

uprooted and rootless.

home is for me, it seems at times,

nowhere and never

and do not dismiss this quickly

as the inevitable ruminations

of a melancholic daydreamer

for this is the raw scream and cry 

of a human being who once lived upon this earth -

do not dismiss this my story,

nor dismiss any story of any human life

upon this earth,

for our songs and hymns are all different,

our journeys look alike but are magnificently different

when we rise to meet God

and journey with him. 

so,

Lord have mercy

    Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy

and I suddenly realise

I can find home

only in You,

God,

if only I would let myself in,

in into Your outstretched arms.

and this strengthens my heart,

and I am suddenly healed, uplifted

I miss my home, my family -

I miss you Appa, I miss you Amma,

I miss you brothers and sisters - 

I miss the friends that have moved on,

and the thought that everything I now know

will soon move on just as

everything I had previously known

has moved on,

intensifies my homesickness

nothing will always be the same,

nothing will always be constant and unchanging,

like the ideal home that I long for,

but You, O Christ Jesus,

You will always be there for me

with Your Love, with Your outstretched arms.

You, Jesus,

    are

        home

Cooking for five on a lazy Sunday arvo

I wake up at 2 pm today. I groan.

I feel so exhausted. 

If I hadn't had to cook for five,

I would've slept much longer.

It has been such a long, tiring week at work,

But I need to do it every week, along with my husband,

To support the kids. My husband's still sleeping - 

Snoring, and my three beautiful kids are lost in their own dreamlands,

Sprawled sleeping on the bed.

As a mother of three, life is hard,

I think to myself, but I can't stop, I have to,

I want to, go on, rain or shine, regardless of how I feel.

Love is an act of the will.

I wish Joshua had woken up early

And prepared some food, but he's still sleeping -

Snoring. I head over to the kitchen with a sigh.

I peel up some potatoes wearily,

Boil them, mash them up,

Get some steak ready, and stir fry some veggies.

I put in some dough I'd prepared the day before

And shove it into the oven to get some bread.

I go to sit a while in the lounge, exhausted.

After more than half hour, the bread ends up burnt and quite horrible.

I look at the burnt bread in my hands,

And then at the spotless host in the hands of Christ,

In the painting of the Last Supper in the dining.

I look at the clock. 4.30 pm. 

I bin the burnt bread, and yell, "Wake up everyone!

Get ready for Mass, quick!"

From the crucifix near the clock,

Christ who can feed more people than there are in the world,

Looks at me with kindness and love.

In the distance, in the town, the church bell rings.

It is time for Mass.

In the Fleeting Moments

Crossing the road, 

I wrote about You.

"Jesus is the answer".

Who else would I think of? 

Who else could I write of,

In the fleeting moments of this busy life,

But You

A Peace Beyond Both Time and Space

Come, let us transcend both time and space.

I hear: "You come from a different world.

You need not conform.

Be as you are, that will suffice."

I nod. Raising my hand, I slowly point towards

The yellow and white criss-crossed keys,

And I whisper: "That is my flag."

For I am neither American nor European

Nor Australian nor Asian

Nor African:

I am Yours.

Church-whispering Your name again and again,

I find a peace beyond both time and space:

I know You are there in the Eucharist.

I feel Your eyes, Your smile on me.

You owe me no proof. I owe you all.

With Your grace, I transcend the calendar,

The days, the clock, the hours.

Talk to me, talk to me about timelessness.

The swinging pendulum of the grandfather clock sneers - 

But Time the tyrant seems to be a myth -

Why measure the hours and the days,

When all we need is to do Your will.

Remember mortal man, forward in time

Is not always forward in love and life

So come, let us transcend both time and space:

Only this moment, this now, matters, and it is Yours

Only here matters, and it is Yours.

O that we could be freed

From the tyranny of the tedious

Hours, minutes, and seconds

And just be as we are, as children of God,

Exist doing God's will, in every passing moment

expression

the way we express

what we express

in this modern era

of phones, data, and ai

is nothing short of

    fra

        gmen

            ted

oceans

my words which are but 

a trial and error description of reality

will never be like yours,

which flow into oceans of infinite, 

life-giving meaning

my words are imperfect.

yours, God, hide unending 

oceans of meaning

In the thirtieth year of my life

In the thirtieth year of my life,

After the skies were split,

And the heavens had spoken,

I followed my will out into the desert,

Where I fasted and prayed for forty days.

Alone in the wilderness with my prayers and my thoughts,

I who have existed before existence,

Thought of you my friend,

Long before you existed.

In your kindness think of me now,

Who wait for you, "a prisoner of my own love",

In the tabernacles of a million churches