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

Fire in the wilderness

Fire in the wilderness, and all those

Beatuous desert flowers you had looked after so carefully

Gone, incinerated, in the blazing flames.

Those verses you had strung

Equally carefully as poems,

Incinerated in the test of time

And unappreciated in the cacophony of attentions

In this modern world.

What next? What next?

Whatever are you going to do next, darling?

What does a poet do when his

Poems go unread?

Does he give up speaking to an unlistening world

Or does he carry on as a prophet,

Putting out sombre words of life and death,

Just as they are, 

Without beautifying, rhyme, or meter

For anyone who would care to listen?

Am I to blame for writing of life and death

And not of romance and roses?

For I write of Thee, God, and hopefully for Thee,

And what we Thy children truly long for

Is a life after death with Thee

Afterword:

Fire, fire, fire, in the wilderness of my heart

And after the flames of pain and suffering

Have done their work,

All that I want now

    is

        God