Great day at the spring conference of Scottish Fellowship of Christian Writers yesterday. Our challenge for our autumn gathering is to write something on ‘new’. Here’s my first draft…
Night falls, and sometimes it’s very dark
Evening’s bright stars hunker down behind cloud;
Where lamps once glowed, now there’s barely a spark.
Empty hearts break, black-dog heads are bowed,
Very faintly on the breeze there wafts a prayer,
Echoing, glimmering, flickers a solitary candle –
Risible weapons against a world’s despair
Yet still too hot for Hell’s hordes to handle.
Moonlight still dances behind its shroud
Oceans still yield their eerie luminescence
Rims of silver trim each nimbus cloud –
Nocturnal sentinels of a numinous presence:
In a few short hours the boundless day will dawn
New comforts will inhabit those who mourn
God’s mercies are, with each fresh sun, re-born.
Lamentations 3:22-23: ...the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning...
