trees – Rich Clarkson Poetry

I’m part of an online worship songwriting group and each month we are set a new challenge. This is my take on the theme of “commitment songs”. It draws on the old hymn “take my life and let it be”, and a prayer from the licensing service of a new vicar

Take my life and let it be
Rooted firmly like a tree
Planted by the waters of your love
Take my mind and let it soar
Like an eagle, searching for
All the truth that’s hidden in your love

Every moment, every day
Everything I have, I pray
Take my life and fill it with your love

Take my lips and let my words
Sing your praises like the birds
Every breath a story of your love
Take my heart and let it blaze
Like a fire, filled with praise
For your burning, never failing love

My memory is a woodland grove of trees
who, down the years, have joined with me in prayer.
For such a long time I was unaware
Of quite how deeply my roots joined with these
Companions who, while steadfast in their place,
Have walked with me on paths of pain and grace.
There was the Hawthorn, clinging to the rocks
Where I sought shelter from the driving rain,
The fragile Birch outside the window pane
Where we would pray beneath the tower blocks,
The Chestnut, lightning scarred yet resolute,
Into my prayers these trees have taken root.
So now, as I seek stillness for my praying,
I find their rustling leaves, their branches swaying.

I entered this into the Manchester Cathedral Poetry Competition (but didn’t win!)

He sits there on the edge, skin gnarled and worn,
wrapped in a wrinkled overcoat – a size
too big – to keep the wind at bay. His gaze
takes in the water as the passers by
pass by. They come and go, he does not mourn
for those no longer seen by knotted eyes.
He used to set the Autumn sky ablaze
but he cannot remember how, or why.

A crow has the temerity to land.
I watch him as he deftly shrugs it off,
displaying his contempt with an irate
harrumph as the wind picks up, blowing in
a further feathered throng, filling the land-
scape like a fall of soot and snow. They scoff,
cackle and caw, their chorus swells, abates
as his reluctant shade stifles their din.

He stands there quivering, rooted to the spot.
After all these years, unnumbered days
of keeping watch amidst the wild and bleak,
he knows his place in the grand scheme of Things.
He is content now, youth’s longings forgot-
ten, no more need for flamboyant displays
just quiet pride. Leaves rustle, branches creak
as every fibre of his being sings
his maker’s praise.

(c) Rich Clarkson 2017

Tag: trees

Take my life and let it be

Roots

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