Keep awake, herefore.

Haiku for the vigilant

Things we do not know:

what lies around the corner,

what is to happen.

The days of Noah,

eating drinking, marrying;

just like us today.

Planet Earth is stuffed.

Should be taking to the streets,

not watching TV.

What price relevance?

The things we’re doing in church,

while the planet cooks.

Does the Lord return?

Will he come to fix things up?

Not holding my breath.

The thieves are coming!

Climate change deniers, all,

stealing the future.

On the far right, fools

posit an infinite earth.

Extinctions abound.

The party goes on,

so much fun! Don’t disturb us;

we don’t want to know.

We did not expect.

But no! They warn us: twelve years!

What if they are right?

Sleep on, you Christians.

Would God let these things happen?

Who else will stop them?

© Ken Rookes 2019

Speech impediment

We have a collective problem

with our hearing, our seeing, too.

There are sounds that we struggle to hear,

sights that our eyes refuse to see.

There are certain frequencies,

cries, groans and wailings,

that auditory senses fail to discern

above our chosen and familiar din.

There are vistas pleasant and reassuring,

scenes of blue skies and gum trees;

with these we make pretty our walls,

convincing ourselves

that cruel and confronting landscapes

in territories beyond our own,

either do not exist

or are none of our concern.

Hear no evil, see no evil;

not my problem.

The denials of sensory perception

are employed to foster

an untroubled existence.

Thus we avert the need

to speak, to act, to confront,

and our voices become forfeit.

In the blurry stories of human origins,

a mythical man

demonstrates the timelessness

of speech impediments.

In feigned innocence, he enquires:

Am I my brother’s keeper?

Jesus, we are told, came

to open the eyes of the blind,

to unstop the ears of the deaf,

and to release the tongues

of those who will not speak.

Pick me, Jesus;

pick me!

© Ken Rookes 2012