These too will pass

Haiku for those who wait

Apocalyptic;

exciting literalists;

Jesus is coming!

Here are rich pickings

for those who speculate, who

think they have knowledge.

What does it all mean?

Much ink has been expended

through the centuries.

Perhaps those who lived

in the first century knew

the hidden meanings.

The disturbing signs

hide a worse reality;

as the planet burns.

Jesus will return

to fix the climate. Is that

what it really says?

The generation

did pass away, so that much

is proved incorrect.

All is temporal.

Heaven, earth, these both will pass.

Jesus’ words remain.

Inescapable:

the warning to be ready,

alert and faithful.

© Ken Rookes 2021

 

The present time

Some Haiku

Kindling the fire,

the one that burns so fiercely

divides day from night.

Division not peace.

Inevitable conflict:

darkness versus light.

Baptism the door,

not to comfort or respect;

life fulfilled by death.

Households will be split;

the ones who serve the kingdom,

the ones who do not.

I, disloyal son,

dared to defy my father;

wounding more than one.

The cloud, it rises

in the west to bring the rain.

The north wind scorches.

Register the wind,

read the signs of earth and sky;

interpret the times.

© Ken Rookes 2016

Painting 1977

The man in the Peter Booth landscape

stares out with red eyes

while the city burns behind him.

Fearful and anxious blacks and greys

give birth bloodily to the distress and pain

of orange flame and scarlet moon.

(Or is it the sun?)

The standing white dog observes without judgement;

nothing that these mortals do can surprise him.

Booth’s apocalyptic vision

could have been referencing this Lucan passage,

speaking as it does, of celestial signs

in the firmament above,

and distress upon earth.

The literalists get excited,

talk fervently of the day that is coming,

of end-times, judgement

and of the hope of heaven’s compensation

for earthly hardship and indignity.

Vindication for the righteous.

They look to the skies, eager to be the first

to see their Master surfing the clouds,

hoping for a mid-flight rendezvous.

Look, Jesus, here we are;

we’ve kept ourselves nice!

It is not in the skies

that the work of faith is to be done,

but here, among earth’s dust,

where the faithful wait

with yearning and with tears,

and with defiant love; costly, unresting.

They press on, determinedly declaring 

in the midst of indifference, uncertainty and distress:

The kingdom of God has come near!

© Ken Rookes 2012

Link to Peter Booth's Painting 1977