Methods For Compatibility

I am skirting too close to religion

As a non-believer

I know that I put myself at risk

For there is much of love and beauty

On their journeys and celebrated paths

Also in their ceremonies, churches and cathedrals

I could become enchanted

Some would say that I already am

Yet always I try to keep some distance

Even now, holding hands in thanks

For this day just joyously lived through

Or the day ahead inviting us to come on in

What is it, and why do I choose

To set myself apart from the crowd

However much that crowd might be dwindling

I do walk in to pray, similar but different to others

I am happy with the shake and swing of the incense

I care for the call and response of Benedictine chant

I have slept and eaten within the monastic walls

I read the stories of those they have favoured

And I do fear for their disappearance, sincerely

So I am pleased to help, in a small way, hoping that

My donations go towards their continuity of purpose

As, at the same time, I lessen my exposure to risk

 

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Rogue Or No

I have adopted words from the canon of religion

Into the peace of my non-religious world

Faith, and grace, and prayer, and love

Are to be found liberally scattered

Just as the vegetarian chooses to name her food

Burger, sausage roll, chicken on a stick

Then I choose to name my non-religious thoughts

In the existence of writing man, or of religious man

Today I sent a photograph to my youngest son

And his girlfriend; also to my grandchildren

I used the words Happy Easter without qualm

Or fear, of any kind of time-based retribution

For it is not up to me, nor you either

To determine whether  others should be starved

Of the beautiful words from the past of religion

With its immense breadth and depth of storytelling

I have no objection to the cathedrals

Or the icons, or the rituals; indeed

I have attended and I have been moved

By the humanity shared in the gatherings

My difficulty arrives when the words are turned

Into instructions, often with violence adopted

As a way to ensure that the followers are kept

On pathways, determined by heaven knows who

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Remaining Time

So so much is behind me

So so little

Seems to lie ahead

Yet only two-thirds

Or four-fifths

Or some other fraction of my life have passed

So how to climb aboard a now train

How in future to look on each day

With a new destination in mind

Yet, most often

A journey without travel

A railroad without tracks

Being everywhere

Whilst going nowhere

Which sounds like a sound plan

Simply to be

And simply to do

With unknown boundaries

To be walked along

To be adorned

With the adjectives of love 

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for his Collected Works

In Every Place We Make Our Own Space

I don’t remember the bedrooms

Or the stairs

At Ten Brick Row

I am able to recall even less

From Whiteley Terrace

Not even the front door

So it was The Crown, at Birdsedge

Where clarity began

A snooker table, a football field

Back though into a vacuum

At the White Door

Room dividing curtains perhaps

Rotcher is clearer now than then

It was a King Crimson party

In a 1930’s semi-detached

Sadly not to last

On to two houses

A family half in half

Then an upside-down arrangement

A bedroom with a door

Onto a lane going nowhere particularly

Then finally, in this phase of life

A council house, with a window

Up above the front door

Which somehow

Probably pretty well inebriated

I would climb in through

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for his Collected Works

Meanings

A road which begins

At Five Lane Ends

So not really a road at all

But a lane

Yet a lane which goes all the way

As would a road, and maybe even beyond

Half-a-mile or so

Down the road, or lane

Over a wall

Into a big field

Edged by trees

Which we climbed

Whose broad branches

We swung from

And also we jumped from

Our stage post

From self into self

Through social interaction

We usually came at the place

From the opposite direction

Meeting up in the village

Then trekking though

The farm yard

Past the barn

And dam

Up through the silver birch plantation

Over tufted ground

To see the huge Plain trees

In our playing field

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works