Sacred Love

Once I dreamt
that I was a photon
travelling from the sun to the earth
and being drawn into a green leaf.

How happy I was
to be passed along
a membrane in a thylakoid
from one phospholipid to another;
a heavenly chain in a chloroplast.

The mechanism was divine.

I was ecstatic
to be part of the amazing energy capture
the splitting of carbon dioxide and water
the production of oxygen, ATP and food.

St Theresa of Avila’s visions
paled beside the stupendous significance
of my encounter with creation.

It was love of the most sublime kind.
And still I feel it when the trees
open their leaves in spring.

In the obscure dark
of night river, poised on rock,
the shag preens itself;
head tilts this way and that, beak
catches gold from a streetlamp.

Candle-power

Strike a match,
flares into flame.

Light the wick,
glows into life.

Illuminates our faces,
gleams in our eyes.

Gilded within
our magic circle.

But a spell with
a strict time limit.

Even Cinderella’s
expired at midnight.

Reduced to a stub,
gutters and dies.

A wisp of smoke
in a pool of wax.

i

Starlings rumble the morning;
dark clouds constantly moving.
Wren mute with their bantering.
They are potent.
I breathe and think of friends
who walk softly beside me
even though          they are dead.
ii

Your light kindles my light
and my light kindles another
and suddenly the darkness
is ablaze with lamps of gold.