TESTAMENT
An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry
by Pam Crane
Copyright 2017 Pam Crane
Thank you for downloading this free ebook.
Forward to Index of Poems
They Who Kiss Mind
to whom I do belong
to My
to My Self alone
My is a wide net cast
between time
hither and past
Self a sense of eye
watching
in privacy
the blue nerve seen
through wax
is ice-keen
of uncommon kind
are they
who kiss mind
risk discovery in
having
Angels’ skin
the people of Light
cohere
behind my sight
we are the white-gold
aëreën
We are very old
Forward to Index
The Return
In the holy of holies
in thick dark
smelling of birds and stone
my blind hand’s
pilgrimage
unveils
the symbol of life
I have come back
my trails of
four thousand years
and all their images
twist to a single
focus, spin
to one fine brilliant vibrant
point
this Egypt
this temple
this soft dancing-ground
of yellow dogs
echoing sparrows
and buried shame
I have come back
in shadows
my long strange face
shockingly
beholds me
The sun and my son
haunt me
in the reed baskets
jostling crushed notes, cats
cheap azure scarabs
ubiquitous images of my peerless wife
where is my city
flat hot dust a rubble of stones
between the holy cliff
and sun-caught sails
trekkers
stare from donkey-back at the gates
of death that swallowed me
my hymns
my sweet children
flying and creeping creatures
music
all I knew
pilgrims cluster
in temples, in musty tombs
tracing my broken features in the torchlight
following with their finger-tips
fine rays
slim hands of the sun
I have come back
like the dog to its vomit
I cannot undo
naivety
cannot erase
stupidity
cannot abase myself before my golden boy
weeping begging his pardon
cannot unmake
the silly myths of heretic as hero
nor can I dissuade
a thousand souls from wanting to be me
For I am he
stripped of imagination’s glamour
dispossessed
of eyes name scraped away
in the king list bones
vanished
regalia food for thieves
I am he
trapped in another life and pinioned
to this shock newsreel
ancient failure
abject penitent
powerless to plead
to all these enchanted eyes
my god delusion
Drowning in memory grasping
my own debris
as it passes
Begging
the last feather to outweigh
my guilty soul
Forward to Index
The Thrill of the Chase
I came in nineteen forty-three;
You are a child compared to me!
But every year we share a date
In January; we celebrate
Four seasons more since we were born
In late, ambitious Capricorn.
At eight, you’re racing in your Kart;
At eight I’m winning with my art
And then my writing - oh, the thrill
Of chasing prizes! Love it still.
But by the time you came to be
A champion driver in F3
I raced toward another goal,
The understanding of the soul.
Came the millennium, came F1
And Pluto transiting our Sun.
You diced with Kimi, Massa, Seb
As I went hunting on the web
For information, dates and times,
For synonyms and perfect rhymes.
One decade ended, one began;
From Oz to Yas you were The Man,
Jenson; you had chased and won
Your longed-for moment in the sun.
And I? ... was being born again
After the years and years of pain,
After my Jesus’ great surprise,
After so many fruitless tries
To greet the waiting world on-line,
I built a Site. Entirely mine.
Now I can hunt for distant friends,
And show them where my rainbow ends;
Share the excitement of this chase
To comprehend the human race
As tiny shards of the Divine
Through Sun and planet, arc and sign.
And you? ... are stepping from your car,
Drawn to where the athletes are.
Your F1 training made you trim
And super-fit to run and swim,
To cycle Riviera hills;
You still need racing and its thrills.
Another track, a wider smile,
Pushing your limits mile on mile.
What are we chasing? Money? Fame?
The fire inside us is the same,
Both driving - driven - for a prize
Which no amount of money buys:
The joy that yet again we’ve done
Our Maker proud - and it was fun!
Forward to Index
1Choosing
On my right, the voices of love and hope.
On my left, the voices of pain and war.
Between extremities there is so much scope
For the soul’s philosophising ; we can soar
On wings as angels - oh, how like a god!
Or fall beneath the bloody boot, the rod
Of iron, or the bitter ghosts of ice.
Be wary, Man, for God does not play dice.
Forward to Index
OUR LORD’S PRAYER
Loving, eternal Father of us all,
Blessed and praised with so many holy names!
Open our hearts and eyes to the light of your Kingdom,
Inspire our minds and hands till the world of souls
Can work your Will in harmony with the Heavens.
Fling wide for us the door of your compassion,
And help us to trust the wisdom of your giving;
And as we learn to long for what is good,
To face our folly, and make our recompense,
Grace us with Truth:
We all are the One Life;
Forgiving each other in love is the end of fear.
Through the enlightened mind,
Through the compassionate heart,
Through the subjected will,
Draw us into your Glory and our joy!
Amen, amen, amen.
Forward to Index
ENCOUNTER
Mid-August.
It is now
night.
The little town
Is scattered with happy light.
He turns to her he loves
In the attic room -
‘Go down
And bring the water, darling,
That we must
Take home.’
She gathers bottles, kisses him
And leaves
Amid the sleepy murmur of settling doves
Under the hotel eaves,
Managing the uncomfortable stair
To a thin door,
Steep paths,
And warm velvet Pyrenean air.
The hot day’s diesel
Dissipates.
The café-bars
Reel with visiting Irish, blarney arms
Around their mates.
She skirts foreign cars
Down into the main street,
Into the swell
Of pilgrims, past the late
Bright kiosks, the emporia;
She has let her feet
Feel their own way, carry her
Into the heart of Lourdes,
Into the evening throng,
A people-river in which she is borne along.
And it is then
Amid the images
Of plastic basilicas, and Bernadettes,
Candles, rosaries and grotto sets,
Of Mary in roses,
Mary pierced with swords,
Mary in flashing rainbows,
Mary on clouds
That amid the crowds
She is met; and entered.
It is then she knows
This evening is extraordinary
Because on her walk for water
She is one with Mary.
The arms open wide; she is God’s daughter.
Into the darkness she is streaming love
Out of a double heart
And all the people can see as she passes by
(Could they perceive such things)
It is Heaven’s eye
That lights on them
And the hands, the fingers
That pour forth crippled souls’ healing
Lift from her like wings.
She has been set apart;
And the ineffable sweetness of Our Lady lingers
Even when she has entered the Domain,
Lightly touching the lonely,
Those in pain,
The nuns, the nurses, patient volunteers,
Giving
Her love untiring
To the hopeless, to the devout
Clutching their souvenirs
At the holy spring,
To the merely curious and to those barely living
The infinite healing loveliness streams out.
Mary is in her as she fills each flask
At the spigots, Mary behind her eyes
In the torchlight.
Around her the old rocks and worn buildings rise.
She is not allowed to make an offering,
Even to ask
If it would be right
To save the basilica and its crumbling steeple.
Words come onto her own lips silently,
‘Buildings are not important. Only people.’
She and Our Lady turn to make their way
Out of the town.
Now she is climbing steps that she came down
When she was still alone.
‘Look by your feet!’
There in the stone
Is a perfect image of Mary and her Child.
In the pitch dark on her PDA
The picture is drawn and filed.
Then, the journey complete,
Mary is gone.
Up in the hotel room, herself again,
She hands holy water to the dearest of men,
Is kissed,
Has been, as ever, missed.
How was she back so late
Leaving him so painfully long to wait
Instead of coming straight
From the Domain? ...
Even to him,
In her transfigured state,
Can she explain?
Forward to Index
AMOR CHRISTI
My bond with you
Is not the binding of a superstition -
I have not said
‘To guarantee good luck I’ll follow You.’
I do not wear your symbol as a charm.
My care of you
Is not the care that comes of obligation;
I will not pay
Attention to you by man’s calendar,
Nor do the will of any less than you.
My work for you
Is driven not by greed for recognition
Nor by the need
To compensate for some great weight of sin;
Because you ask me, I do everything.
My words for you
Cannot be pages of propitiation -
Awe and fear,
Eulogies, interminable prayer,
Begging and preaching, you will never hear.
And when I greet you
I will not bow, or kneel, or bend my head;
I cannot meet
Your steady gaze that way. I will not turn
My face, nor stay away,
My Friend,
From your embrace.
Forward to Index
A SONG TO GOD
If I would sing a song to God
Then I must sing a song for Man -
And I must sing it from the heart
As freely as an angel can.
If I would sing a song for Man,
Then I must sing for every Tree -
For every leaf that breathes my breath,
And every branch that shelters me.
If I would sing of Man and Tree
The song must be of Sun and Rain,
Of feeding bird and humble bee
Who sow the green of wood and plain.
If I would sing of Tree and Rain,
Then I must hymn the dancing Sea
Who pounds the land from stone to sand,
Whose silver gifts of cloud are free.
If I would sing of cloud and Sea,
I serenade the mighty Moon;
For in her palm are Storm and Calm,
Her children with the Lord of Noon.
If I would sing of Sea and Moon
I lift my praises to the Sun
Who governs all from Spring to Fall,
The Life, the joy in everyone.
If I would sing of Moon and Sun,
The silver Queen, the golden King
Whose light reveals what God conceals
In every heart - to God I sing!
Forward to Index
ARACHNID
Love me, love my god
I go in fear of peace I promise me
Do not unravel him
he at the heart of death in wait for me
Who preys on all men's prayer
I web the world he with my spinneret
Up fly and catch
Promise and arthropomorphic dream
Star set in a man's skull
His morning beads a myriad I count
With him we tell
And wait for the updraught dawn dusk underwing
O silver god-hand I
Make to be at the last enlaced and all
Manner of many
Legged unwary other me o give us manna
Before making love to the
Last rose o beautifully bind us
Before the real
Unapprehended fang of our own myth grinds in
Forward to Index
Water - Sky - Fire - Earth
We came, swimming
amid the sound of mermaid tails
and elders chanting - the tales they gave
of ancient drowning murmured across
rhythms of whale song
the whole sea hymning
Into the clouds we ca
me
and lost ourselves
the sound of hills growing
as they gave back the gift of rain
stilled us as the heaven moved across
our consciousness
as known, just as unseen
Out of the core we came
dragons of old old story
spoke with the sound of flame
courted the heroes’ swords
they gave us an evil name
robbed us and maimed us sorely
yet we remain the same
guards of the golden hoards
We came in secret
from our deep mole-homes
in the blinding dark
the sound of grass growing
of worm feeding
gave us direction, tunnelling across
nobody else’s vision
Forward to Index
1Clouds On The Horizon
The clouds on the horizon
Are the spirits of the Bison
And they bellow in the thunder
With a fury at the plunder
Of the masters of the plains.
(Oh the pitiful remains!)
The clouds on the horizon
Are the spirits of the Bison.
In the glory of the lightning
Is the beautiful and frightening
Accusation of their eyes.
(Oh the sorrow of the skies!)
The clouds on the horizon
Are the spirits of the Bison;
They are crowding, they are coming,
And the Warriors are drumming
And the people of the gun
Haven’t anywhere to run.
From horizon to horizon
Sweeps the triumph of the Bison,
He has put his mighty shoulder
To the cataract and boulder;
Men will answer for their greed
In the heavenly stampede.
The clouds on the horizon
Are the spirits of the Bison.
They will spare all those who love them,
Passing harmlessly above them -
But the Cities of the Plain
Have to learn it all again.
Wail for sons and weep for daughters
Taken by the scouring waters;
Rage at industry and spire
Lost to earthquake, wind and fire.
Ah, the spirits of the Bison
Are the clouds on your horizon...
Forward to Index
CONQUEST
Sing songs of the dark font where I was named,
And of her I seek,
Who comes from the same chill God-house