Holy Ground

Holy Ground 1: Sanctuary 

For the family packing up 

Worldly goods 

All of them, all too soon

And searching for another place

That might last a little longer, 

Than this one, and the one before.

Here, amongst the 

Dirty rags and cleaning products 

The cardboard boxes and the mess,

Remove your shoes

Free your feet

For, in the ancient way of things,

You're standing on holy ground.

They strive and work -

As much as any other - 

But watch as their money, fairly earned,

Is whisked off by 

A landlord

Their agent

Our society

No something for tomorrow or old age

No final gift for the children when death comes to call

Poorer

All.

Wider and deeper, seeping in and staining.

So cast your eyes

To this holy same place

Here

In the heartache and anger.

You stand not alone -

Love sings a lullaby 

Of hope and home

Of comfort and strength

Of abundance and a gathering together 

Belonging

Holy Ground 2: Presence 

For the waiting silently 

By a window, watching 

The still and empty street.

A singular cup of tea

A sole dinner plate

And the heart that searches

Yearning and keening for company and connection 

And all the roadblocks of time and space

Of demands and distractions 

That separates them from loved ones - those of old and those yet to be.

Lift up your head

Open your gates and swing wide your doors

For you are body

You are blood

Broken and cherished and 

Swept up in glory

Sitting there, waiting at the window.

By all the chatter of the world:

The tasks the priorities 

All demands, designs and dreams -

Those that pull us

Apart

And tear us 

Away,

In chasm and rift,

Deep within and without.

The moon looks down on 

The fragments 

And glows a gentle sonnet

Of sorrow 

Let's seek instead 

Milk and honey

Promised land

Togetherness and belonging 

Arching through time 

And seeping 

Into the essence of all.

Through the friend who visits

And who doesn't leave,

Who calls the universe in -

Milk and moon.

And imparts a mark of beauty

For her there, sitting silently at the window 

Holy Ground 3: Affirming 

When flesh or mind 

Wobbles 

Or anticipation meets accident 

There's a sacred gathering of

Care givers, these angels in attendance 

Of detective sleuths, collecting information vital

And ground breakers, who defy the order of things to heal and mend.

A ministration of comfort 

Holy orders -

in each word and wipe 

in the wishing and willing

to get us up and going 

The bleeding of time 

Dripping through the cracks

Between visits, tests and specialist sessions 

The itching out of dreaming:

A window, a world beyond and so far away, glimpsed for a moment.

The taste of home, a memory cherished.

The face of a loved one, a solid testimony of hope from beyond the automatic front doors.

Then there's the mud and the spit

And a deep intent

To draw into a bursting fullness of

Being -

Wrapped up

Gathered up

Ushered into a new day, 

Whole.

In this mystery of our each own jumble of cells

And soul

With the vomit and blood and the

Rouge disease that tries to run us off

That breaks and shatters 

spirit and body, and futures and families 

But it can't touch us - not in the way it wants -

We're kept

Fully, widely, deeply, wholly

Kept.

Holy Ground 4: Attending 

Institutional walls 

Institutional doors

And rules, roles and routine

Which hold the line of time that drags

With

The uniforms that march around

A constant reminder

That the shirts will leave each day

To be reunited with a child, a pet, 

a-taken-for-granted giddy throng of choices and opportunities.

And for the companions with stories 

Born out of struggle and seeking

Both the same and different from your own

Hark the call

That penetrates this concrete cage,

That pervades the air that's heavy with waiting 

And let come to rest

A witness on the windowsill

Holy dove

One that hovers above, 

A solid affirmation of presence

A declaration of devotion 

A tonic for the restless, 

Messenger of horizons, 

Lifeline to those far away.

The debt to Cesar has been demanded

Yet your wild, dogged, invaluable life

is there for the taking.

Search and find it:

There, along with the King's treasure 

- hidden in plain sight 

amongst the confines of

incarceration -

freedom, peace, hope, joy,

There, in your very bones

which cry

Life.