people in your neighbourhood – Simon's still stanza

‘Our Daily Bread’ – Or Keeping Watch over ‘The Hours’

(i)

You give us this day

Our daily bread

At the morning hour.

Early morning scene –

Where’s a camera!

Fog ahead

From the night-time

Falls

Of rain.

A backdrop

Against a vista before us

Amber hues of a light

Blanketing thinly

A field of ryegrass,

Where a gangly foal

Followed its mother,

Their hides

Coated with the glistening

Yellow sheen of

The finalising dawn.

Our daily bread

Of beauty for

The breakfast hour.

(ii)

Our daily bread

Of an hour during the day.

A musician

Attuned to our people

Asks the question:

“Could you not

take communion down

to Hetty and Bart?

He looks

Wobbly

You know!”

And wobbly

He was

As he came forward,

Bandy legs

Like shuffling pins

A slow

Deliberate

Swaying swing.

When asked after

I was taken in

By the deep pools,

Blue as fathoms of sea,

Of his old eyes

Above a faint white wisp

Of whiskers

Dotted on his pink skin.

A visage, I think,

I really truly saw

For the first time.

“I want to still walk

up while I can.”

His polite and firm

Smile in word and picture

Clearly expressed

A residue of pride

In a body intent

Also on aging.

Oh, that face!

The courage

In his faltering steps.

Greek tragedy

Knew not

The magnitude

Of his great

Journey

Shuffling up a aisle.

Our daily bread

Of fortitude and

Faithfulness

At hours during the day.

(iii)

Our daily bread

In the hours of the afternoon.

A young husband

Shops,

Weaving among the

Rows of fruit and vege

Bordered

Not in garden beds or pots

But displays

Under strategically designed

Supermarket lights,

While his wife

Full of the promise

That late pregnancy

Pronounces

Waits for her

knight’s return

for them to resume

their long road trip

o’er the mountains

and down,

down,

towards the sea

where waves may

wash away

the dust

of their weariness.

Our daily bread

Of com-passion –

suffering with –

in the mid afternoon

hours of heat

with a long journey to go.

You give us this day

A feast

Of wonder and

Practical virtue

Among the people

And hours

‘our day’.

Simon C.J. Falk 18 October 2015

In recent days, one of the finest blogs I have the privilege of reading, ‘The Bookshelf of Emily J‘, published a post on the people in your neighbourhood. Please check it out as it is a beautiful post about the goodness in ordinary places like the places we each live in. The poem in this post of mine is a response to Emily’s fine post. Names have been changed. It uses examples to draw on the Christian ‘Lord’s Prayer’ (also known as the ‘Our Father’) and the old Christian custom of remembering to keep the hours of the day in praise and prayer.