Wednesday, August 31, 2011

We need to wake up from our sleep

Romans 13


We need to wake up from our sleep;

the somnambulistic state

that surrounds us, shroud-like

to conceal from us the things that are true,

lovely and of good report.

Our preferred dreams are filled

with things that glitter, caress and distract;

a multitude of tantalising objects and possessions

that feign an outrageously inflated value.

They are an encroaching cataract cloudiness

creeping undetected across the lenses of our lives.

Invisible but persistent,

they distort our vision in cunning ways

and threaten to hand us over to

the popular blindness

so freely dispensed by shrill politicians,

shock-jocks, conniving experts,

media commentators and self-obsessed magnates.


We must rouse ourselves from the delusions

of denial to embrace sleep’s nemesis:

the life that rises excitedly in dawn’s light

and glows with all the possibilities of love;

true, generous and unconquered.

Then we will behold love’s joyful rainbow,

its myriad colours true, generous,

kind and unconquered;

consigning meanness and mere law

to unseeing shadows.


© 2011 Ken Rookes

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