Christian faith – Simon's still stanza

On the Prospect of Not Celebrating Easter this Year

On the Prospect of Not Celebrating Easter this Year

Will Christ not rise again

This year

For us?

Is he in fact

Still

Dying among us?

In those succumbed

To COVID-19.

Or is he

Still

Dead?

Is he in the tomb

With us?

Quarantined from life

Before rising

Infected and decaying

With the virulence

Of toxins?

Of needy-greedy panic

Grabs at shopping shelves?

As panicked voices

Constantly ask questions

What about this?

Or that?

What now?

What now indeed.

Will there be no people

As the body of Christ

Holding their candles

Light in the Lord?

Signs that Christ

Has risen

And shines

In us and

Among us?

Or are we consigned

To private piety,

In our own place,

So foreign

To genuine faith

That seeks to hold us together

As parts of the body

Of the Risen Lord?

What of this distant,

Isolated,

Seclusion?

Dying alone

In the dark

And waiting

In the tomb?

When will we rise?

When shall we hear?

Magdalene’s cry:

“I have seen

The Lord!

And heard his voice!

Simon C.J. Falk 21 March 2020

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Healed Home

Healed Home

Danced!

My soul

It danced

The day

The healing

Came

To me.

Pushed,

Crawled,

Lurched

And leaned

Onward

I went

Through the crowd.

Touch

If I could touch

But the cloak.

Reach

Stretch

Yes

Oh!

I am whole

I am healed

One with myself

No longer alone

I can rejoin

My people

My own.

I am

Healed home.

Life

I now have life

He dried the flood

That led to death.

Humbled

I am before

But oh,

The gratitude

Bursts from my heart

In the new springtime

Of my days.

Simon C.J. Falk 27 June 2015

In the common Christianity Lectionary (book of Bible readings) this weekend, an account from the Gospel of Mark (5:21-43) tells of the healing of both Jairus’ daughter and of an unnamed woman with a haemorrhage. The verse above attempts to catch the jubilation the woman may have felt.

The Preacher on the Clydesdale on Palm Sunday Night

The Preacher on the Clydesdale on Palm Sunday Night

In Barellan NSW there is a Clydesdale Festival each year. They have teams of bullocks and horses and it is a great day out! This poem was prepared for a school assembly at Barellan Central School to celebrate Easter. The idea was to make the Christian Palm Sunday connect with Barellan Clydesdales, Barellan Beer and country life.

The Preacher on the Clydesdale on Palm Sunday Night

When you go to bed at night,

And close your eyes, switch off the light;

Tuck up the bedclothes real tight,

For when the dreamtime comes.

The dreams come even in Holy Week,

When sleepy mouths do not speak;

And we never in the darkness peak,

So as not to disturb the dreamtime.

I heard a dream a while ago,

Something about a horsey show;

And a preacher, none who we would know!

Was one of the main characters.

It tells of a night within the calm,

A horse came up but did not harm,

Any person waving a palm,

On that Palm Sunday night.

In that week that we all call Holy,

There’s a story of Preacher Foley,

Who came a riding a Clydesdale foalie,

All the way in to town.

The people stood out on the street,

Waving their palms and tapping their feet,

To the beat of hoofen feet,

And of Foley astride his mount.

There was no donkey, mule or ass,

That the preacher could find after Mass,

So, to cheer up lad and lass,

He came upon a Clydesdale.

But that’s the way these Holy Days,

To celebrate Easter in Barellan ways,

For those olden times of gigs and drays,

Are what will steal the show.

As Foley’s Clydesdale came up near,

The crowd they gave a mighty cheer!

One said: “Get ‘im a Barellan Beer!”

As he trotted by.

He trotted past the young and old,

The aloof, shy ones and the bold,

He touched the hearts both warm and cold,

Bringing to all his cheer.

A kelpie’s bark made Foley look back,

But his plucky Clydesdale had the knack,

To keep his head upon the track,

And no one came to harm.

So the message of Christ’s great trip,

Along Jerusalem’s royal strip,

Still managed to find a grip,

In peoples’ hearts that day.

If you can’t find ass, donkey or mule,

Don’t worry, you can play it cool,

Get a Clydesdale to come past the school,

For Palm Sunday Barellan Style.

Simon C.J. Falk 31 March 2015

Colours Shaded Blue

This one is hot off the press! News has not been good in recent days. There have been various changes, griefs and losses in our lives. Friends move away. Others have family with cancer. People in our State (of NSW) are beset by devastating fires. This poem takes up some of the mood and moves to concrete, Christian hope.

Colours Shaded Blue

If colours fill our lives

Then these days are shaded blue;

As fresh news comes upon us

We face this shadowed hue.

Change and loss and illness

Fill our spoken words and screens;

The unknowing makes us wonder

As we tremble at unseens.

Sometimes we have too much information,

At others, not enough;

But when those near us suffer