Today

Today is a fine day for living
         today I will catch my breath
and be thankful :
         like nothing are the joys
of life and of love
         one and the same

I have been through
         enough ages to know
when to count my blessings
         I have held new-born life
in my hands
         I have picked budding roses
trimmed their stems
         and placed them
in a glass vase and watched
         as the petals unfolded
In the reflex of a human face
         I have seen tenderness
along with memory
         and eyes kindled with love

Today is a fine day to remember
         the days that have gone before
but also to plunge headlong
         into the present
When all else fades
         or grows tired
when the flesh fails
         and the hand trembles
as it reaches out
         to caress a face
I know that time
         is a great leveller
it strips away all irrelevance
         despises the narrowing
lust for gold and glory
         Today is a fine day to admit 
that love is the first 
         and the last intelligence

John Lyons

Poem

All morning I have waited
         for words to come
for a little poetry
         to warm my heart
all morning I have sat
         looking out
at the grey autumn rain
         falling so slowly
but with such
         merciless persistence

I thought of you
         and the rising river
fed by this rain
         I thought of how love
is a mitigation
         in all circumstances

: and now
         as the day advances
I notice that light
         has lifted the grey sky
even though the rain
         has not abated
the light has raised
         the leaden canopy
and allowed the day
         to smile for a while

John Lyons

The hours

Time is the human medium
         it’s what we live in
what we love in
         what we die in
it is the oxygen
         of our existence
In time the world
         of infinite tomorrows
it is light and it is darkness
         it is the sparrow
beneath the hedge
         it is the falling leaves
that litter the earth below
         the fruit we have consumed
the very future’s future
         it is the phantom of succession
it is here and it is now
          and through this deep ocean
fish swim unnoticed :
         no tree can count its leaves
no sea its population
         : who knows what silence
predated out star
         who knows what came
before before
         ours is the mystery
of aliveness
         ours are the hours

John Lyons

So the pride

So the pride
      
so the ambition

so the greed
      
all these will fail
will fall finally
into the earth’s fissures
when the strands 

of our lives 
      
are unravelled


what is flesh
and what is bone

and what is our mortality
what wealth will carry us

over to the other side
beyond the lanes

of life and death
 ?   

the skin stretched

but the eyes hueless
      
and the tongue still

silent day and night
      
a cinder pile

a taste consumed
      
in ash
 : only love
warm
 in the memory

John Lyons

Hiatus

Those gaps so precious
          not to be wasted
dangling time
         the cusp of arrivals
and departures
         the moment before
the rose blooms
         or dinner is served

We should be alive
         to dead time
seize every moment
          : savour
doing nothing
         it really is our us-time
to fill with thoughts
         of love and memories
of love and quiet prayers
         for ever greater love
No such thing
         as waiting : there is
only living and breathing
          we’re here for the ride
until it grinds
         to an untimely halt

John Lyons