These hidden things

Haiku for children

The invitation

must be accepted, or else

it has no value.

The flute is playing

the children are calling out:

Why won’t you come dance?

Here is the offer

of life filled with love and hope:

RSVP now.

Share fully in life,

both its joys and its sorrows.

There’s no other way!

The children can see

the things that the wise refuse;

the wonders of God.

I see you’re weary,

your burdens consume your life.

Come, receive my rest.

My yoke is easy,

blessed with purpose and with hope;

come and learn from me.

© Ken Rookes 2020

Growing weary

“ . . . but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Isaiah 40: 31.

Like the alleged behaviour of the ostrich,

the young bury their heads

in the nearest party; the flashing lights

and booming speakers joining to affect

a most efficient bouncer, large and unarguable,

to exclude uninvited realities.

Their parents did much the same,

retreating to their picture-window caves

with the essential light box flickering

in the corner, and tantalising with its

pleasant dancing magazine pictures

and offering only the tidily groomed

dressed-up view of world and nation

approved by the dominant consumerist paradigm.

Insistent reality, sad and unfashionable,

and bearing the accusing scars of

injustice, avarice and fear,

has been officially declared a source of boredom

and ordered to wait at the gate.

It makes us weary;

we would rather it intruded somewhere else.

© Ken Rookes 2012