Trade Winds

Trade winds with no sails to play in.
Tides rising and falling with no hulls for lifting. 
The beach tractors still. 
No boats to pull, their owners at home longing,
For salty sea, sunshine and splashing.  

The roads half empty, the bins half full.
Our beaches swept clean their true beauty seen,
By three walking or maybe just two. 
Our visitors missing. Empty sea stretching, boat free, clear and sparkling. 

Small shop fronts closed with no tills ringing. 
Summer friends still town-bound
Dreaming, of screeching gulls and fish and chips. 
Along the front, shoulders pink.
Toes sandy, and ice-cream dripping. 

Our summer days are fast approaching. 
And we have no way of knowing. 
Will they be as they’ve always been?
With campsites bursting,
And the sun lotion flowing. 
Or heat hazed and dazed, 
the empty space so surprising. 

And then the winter, with cold winds blowing. 
Belts so tight, too tight for breathing.  
But don’t worry there’ll always be neighbours knocking. 
And we know how to stand the storm’s battering. 
Because under sea, salt, and stone, 
Local heats don’t stop beating. 

The Grand Design

 

We’re all important, every one. 
Each life fits in this grand design.  
The perfect place, cut to shape. 
Engineered for you alone. 

But so often we feel like we’re left in the box. 
The screw or bracket that didn’t quite fit. 
Neither use nor ornament in the great scheme of things. 
Ashamed we didn’t make the grade. 

But all the while we miss the truth. 
Don’t spot the diamond in the rough. 
Our minds somehow distort the facts;
And hide the light that shines from us. 

And now we’ve had this great reset,
Of everything we thought we knew. 
The time to really have a look.  
And find out who we truly are. 

What have you found while your shield’s been down?
In this time you’ve spent backstage, off screen?
I hope you’ve been kind to yourself as you’ve looked. 
I hope you’ve seen what’s real and what’s not. 

This time to think has helped me see, 
That the puzzle’s bigger than I knew. 
That each and every one of us,
completes the picture every day. 

So on the days when I feel too small,
Like I should be something that I’m not. 
I’m learning to trust in what I can’t quite see. 
That my light, like yours, lights this world for us all. 

Tired

I’m tired. Are you too?
Tired of imagining a future that I can’t quite see.
Hopes and dreams disappeared in the mist.
An uncharted course, stretching on and on.
No horizon ahead, and no fixed point.
No safe harbour in sight to dock for the night. 

We’re on a journey to a destination unknown.
I feel wobbly. Do you?
Full of questions and fears.
What will have changed?
And how much?
Who will be there, and who might not?
And will I have the strength to bear that loss?

Can we stop this second guessing – just give it up?
No more rounds in the fight to know what we can’t.
Stay down for the bell and just deal with right now.
And leave tomorrow in hands that are greater than ours?

Faith tells us this is the way we must live.
That God will provide what we need for each day.
That if we trust and hope and work for good.
We won’t need to know what tomorrow will bring.
And we can rest in a peace that we don’t understand.

I can’t always manage to surrender like this.
I suspect it may be the same for you too?
And we’re longing for a world that’s fair, good and just.
And we’re so tired of carrying the weight of that hope.
And how it will be, we really don’t know. 

But there’s someone I trust, who I’ve met on the way.
When I’m weary and burdened,
And I’ve lost the fight.
He is humble and gentle and we can learn from him.
For He holds all our tomorrows,
And his hands they are light.