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

   

where do you call home

and they asked me,

conversationally,

where I called home

and I realised in a sudden shock,

that I did not belong here,

nor there, nor anywhere

and I whispered in reply,

as if in a dream:

"God."

the sidewalk

like the fallen, crushed autumn leaves

in the middle of the sidewalk,

trodden into dust by men of dust and clay,

before it is swept into the void -

us

before the autumn,

before we depart,

have mercy on us,

Christ Jesus,

for only in Thee we find transcendence

from this mortal frame.

have mercy

lest we allow ourselves

to be swept away from endless life

transcendence

after the night of raging winds,

in the morning I head out to the street

and see a million paper cards 

scattered everywhere by the wind 

with the word transendence written 

on each one of them.

the howling wind still races along the street

and its alleys, challenging my mortality,

my transcience, my ephemerality.

oh that I could live forever upon this earth

but I cannot, and the screaming taunt 

of approaching death haunts me.

I take a breath above the waves,

immerse myself in God,

and I am under the waters again -

ICTHUS meaning fish, swims within 

the deep waters, immersed in God -

and so I try to imitate Christ.

I immerse myself in God again,

and continue to write

cities named after me,

books written about me,

and legends spoken

in hushed whispers

about me

all this do I imagine,

in my desire to be remembered

and in my fear of being forgotten.

supposedly pulchritudinous breadcrumbs

in lettered form in these desultory

rambling poems, all leading to one

single yearning of the heart, 

to tell posterity that I was once here.

what egoism what hubris what pride

to have thought that I could have

etch my name forever on the shores of time.

by nightfall the waves of death break through

and wash my name away as if I never were here at all

we all fail the test of time even the ever famous ones,

and we will live on only by virtue of charity

if we have had any in this short day on earth.

death is imminent. every step I take 

is one step closer, to that door that leads to God's embrace.

3 billion seconds they say is all we have on average.

every second gone is one second closer to eternity.

one second, one step closer to You.

I, mortal man, terrified of oblivion

I, mortal man, trying to transcend 

transcience and time

I, mortal man. with immortal soul.

like a diamond amidst the dust

for in the evening of life like the falling autumn leaves,

I too fall, I join the soil, and 

this frail dust that I am to dust returns.

and my soul would live on 

in the fullness of life only in God's embrace

I search everywhere, without realizing,

for meaning, for power, 

for glory, for fame,

to somehow be remembered forever,

to somehow be the greatest of them all,

but my search is always in vain.

it merely deepens the emptiness.

    I can find

        transcendence 

            only in God

Church Going

we go to church to have a good time,

to feel good about ourselves,

to feel happy and entertained.

we go to ward off the guilt.

we go in shorts and comfortable t-shirts,

and cheap slippers,

because we are going as if to a picnic,

to the park, to the beach.

it is the only Sunday we have and we want

to make most of it. we could have gone

to the movies, or to the mall, or to the food court instead,

and yet we've come here,

so remember that. we're using up precious time for this,

and we expect it to be worth it. 

so while you're up there, Father, make sure

to say a few jokes and keep us entertained.

we don't want to be bored. and also

tell us that God loves us in spite of what we've done.

now don't start preaching about sin,

we don't want to be feeling bad about ourselves 

when we leave this place.

and it's fine if we're a bit late to Mass, okay,

we are busy people,

don't start telling us off for that.

we will be early for interviews, movie shows, and for lunches with friends,

because those things matter,

but we might be a bit tardy for church

as it doesn't matter as much.

because it's all about us

    it's all about us

        it's all about us

            and not about God

indeed, it's not like we really need to be here -

it's the 21st century and we are at last truly enlightened.

we have our phones. we have technology. we have ai.

we are adults and do not take baby steps anymore.

we tell ourselves, we can walk without God

    until

        we

            can't 

Beyond the myriad of grumbling voices,

In the tabernacle of the Church,

In the Most Blessed Sacrament

Of the Holy Eucharist,

Wherein is contained the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ,

Wherein is contained all the riches of the Church,

Wherein is contained the hidden elusive treaure 

That all the universe desperately yearns for,

Before Whom kings, warriors, and noblemen genuflect - 

In this Most Blessed Sacrament,

The Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe -

Revered by the angels of the celestial courts

But not honoured by busier men -

Weeps and weeps and weeps,

As men distract themselves from 

The purest gold and diamonds,

By playing in the mud.

His blessèd Heart, hurt and wounded

By a million arrows from mankind on every side,

Bleeds and bleeds and bleeds for mankind.

Like a prisoner in his own palace,

Like a beggar in his own kingdom,

This King humbly, quietly asks for your love.

What do you say?

The Contagion of a Smile

and I asked them stonecutters,

"mates, when ye engrave ma name

in yon tombstone,

could ya put an exclamation mark after my name

and maybe a picture of me

as a young lad

with a wide, wide smile?"

in life and in death,

I want to smile widely

and see the smile

spread like a plague

from me to my neighbours, 

to everyone in my town,

to everyone who lives.

joy for everyone, none excepting

wind on the trees beside the road

I heard Your voice whispering,

gently, gently,

through the wind blowing

amongst the trees

as the leaves rustled sweetly

You said I love you,

and with the wind and the trees

and all the rustling leaves,

I whispered back

I love You too

of dust and clay and blood and bone

and silently I said unto Him:

my Jesus who loves me

like mad, like mad,

I beg Thee have pity on me

a sinner - a sinner!

dust and clay, mere dust and clay!

this frail, fragile, soon fading being

of blood and bone

cannot live, cannot survive,

without Thy blessed breath!

If Thou takest away Thy breath,

I soon fade away

and depart from this world.

only Thy hand sustains me,

maintains me in this blessed existence

without Thy hand holding me up,

I stumble and fall despite my desperate

tottering, doddering, confused baby steps,

and all I would know is despair, ignominy, and wretchedness

petering out miserably into oblivion,

for I would know not where to walk 

and why and how.

lead Thou me forward, past life, past death,

into Thy hands

hold me up, Lord,

with Thy hands,

if only so that I could feel 

Thy hand in mine,

For the remainder of this long, 

sometimes tedious, journey towards Thee,

hold me up

thus my imperfect, mortal prayer

of dust and clay and blood and bone.

and as an epilogue,

I whisper fiercely to the trees, to the stars, 

to the wind, to anyone who would listen:

I believe that Christ will take care of me

Portrait of a Quixotic Poet

Poor delusional me,

To whom all reality seems textual in nature.

The world is a word, the sun is a noun, the moon is derived from the Old English mōna.

Poor delusional me, a poet in my perception

But an absent-minded Quixote in others.

Caritas

Money profits nothing.

Material possessions deceive in their promise to finally fulfill.

After becoming profiteers of this world's gold and silver,

What would you do? What would you ever do?

After the last piece of gold is spent, and all money has been squandered,

The world having deceived us and robbed us of peace,

Only God and men will remain. Charity will remain forever

Tell me the way you write poetry

Tell me the way you write poetry, and I will enter into your sentences, your words, your very letters,

And I will endeavour to tell you what lurks deep within the heart of your thoughts.

Invite me into your worldview, my friend, though I may not assent to your every opinion, for I have my own,

Show me your world and I will show you mine. I am no psychologist or philosopher to assess you or pass judgement upon you, my friend,

I am but a fellow wayfarer on the journey, a transient passerby, a flitting, fluttering, butterfly, here upon this earth for but a fleeting moment,

In short, consider me your friend for I ardently see you as mine, my brother Man and sister Woman from this family of humankind, living within the homely confines of our pleasant family home called earth,

Let me hear you speak, let me read what you write, let me listen to the rhythym of your thoughts, which I imagine cannot be anything but beautiful, flowing as they do from a soul created in imago Dei,

Let me listen to you for a thousand years, for I know myself and have heard my own thoughts echoing painfully, endlessly, within the Cathedral of my heart, and I know what I think and say and do and think,

Long, long enough have I been the center of my universe, let me learn who you are, my friend, my brother, my sister, my companion, com panis, you with whom I break my daily bread, my daily bread of the air, the water, and the love of God, upon God's good earth.

Show me your world, and I will show you mine. Invite me to your worldview, and I will say unto you, Tauchen Sie ein in meine Weltanschauung, and welcome you into my mind, my world, my worldview,

Where I desire that you hear of the love of God, of God, of the good, good God...