A double joy it is to read,
My musings in strict verse,
To let my old self kindly lead,
My praises near to burst,
O painted pictures, all the scenes,
My memories - the dirth,
Of many inmost melodies,
My growing man - the birth.

The last strand enwound within a stripe of vigor,
The petals fall a little saddened in the shady afternoon,
But as if in such a vibrant act of deepest hope,
In love of Life and shunning sin and death rebels,
Such beauty in a smile it'd bloom in its near-bowing stoop.

Slipping on another face,
The former falls in shreds,
The categories of youth,
Tug - firmly at my sharp gaze.

Is a man within his hair?
Within his strength and stride?
Is he found in his eyes?
Or - met in his deepest care?

Though I change to a new face,
My mind is held the same,
So samely holds my look,
Subverting change I see:
The same man quickened in the glass.

O birdsong on the morning wind, how I
missed you. You gracious bells, and pleasant chimes,
You stage of love and strife and wittering,
When times were no less simple still, but I
a simpler man, a boy in homely fields,
You come to me again when without sleep,
I come to you again when strange dreams writhe,
Afresh, I'm human in His light and song.

The year ticks on a discrete mark of the,
Unending slip of time, each moment gone,
A smear its place in time to 'ternity,
When does the wrinkle dress an eye with glee?
When do hairs cling to shadows of a jaw?
When does one wake up full of years for more?
To vast eternal shores all slip away,
The fullness of the thing marked out by God alone.

Cresting a familiar hill,
A land far drawn away from waning time,
An outpost in a churning sea of change,
The stones peak slightly more into a toothy smile,
The grass retreating like a parting beard,
Rolling underneath a sky reshuffled,
Molding to a slightly warbled shape,
Here when big and small, when cold and hot,
When sprinting and when hobbling.

Passing on such expertise,
Now present under all your years,
The tools you share and build for us,
The hand-me-downs and hardy tricks,
Condensed turn richly to the few,
Grand kernels of eternal truth.

Estranged from myself when looking in my face,
I hardly see a boy now his memory is faint,
Perhaps he came much of... whatever looks like me,
But I cant seem to find the continuity,
For memory turns faint when gazing in my face,
Perhaps I'll see one day when I've finished this long race:
My Lord and all my ways within His eyes.

To dwell before departing,
Hemmed in by grace and grace,
Warm places I was furnished,
Learnt walking then to make a place,
My own and take good company,
Bear peace unto a stranger's face,
To carry fire through biting nights,
Through cold to plant a warmer banner.
And so I shall depart.

A meet up sparing not the time
To plan far first but spend it on
The time and laughs when just a few
Can gather before departing.
Perhaps this be the water
That will tide the friendship to
A far off time beyond all these
Years to when our beards are grey.

Taking time to reorganise,
My room for room, undustiness,
For from my youth I heard: be wise!
Clean up your space, don't leave a mess!
I feel a stir and the challenge rise,
For creatures find in piles a nest,
Too beckoned by the order I surmise,
The learnings of my youth are dressed,
Upon my shoulders now -
I hope the fabric's full.

Full of stories from a far off plain,
A fiercer Sun on windswept flat,
Talk of bricks back when your crown was black,
But now you have a silver mane,
Now a twinkle that still sits behind,
Your wrinkled eyes.

Man in the mirror,
I can hardly remember when you were not so,
It seems the tides of time have washed your face,
Like sand you've slimmed imperceptibly,
Like sand it's dragged away the marks of youth,
Yet I see a sparkle in your eyes,
As shiny rocks that glimmer in the water's wake,
You are becoming yet become,
And if He wills I'll watch the wisdom mark your face,
In creases 'till I hardly remember when you were not so.

The texture of an open space,
The vacant sky and distant blue,
Flows into hazy beams of light,
That shatter on the reeds and grass,
A tugging but withdrawing ache,
A refreshing breeze to season such a place,
The open world - that homely countryside,
Perhaps I'll long for you in time,
When I am far beneath a convoluted sky,
This place of youth and open land,
This blessed texture for a distant time perhaps.

Podium in tens descend.
To the right burnished bronze,
Like smokey fire rising in the evening,
To the left an austere silver luster,
Like fragments of light and bladesong in the air,
In the middle maddened gold,
Like dragons steeped in splendor hidden,

I became a man today.
Something of a swallowed time,
Until my belly's full and I stand tall,
At summit of my childhood climbed,
I made myself a belt of rhymes,
I've strapped up tight with all my might,
At summit of my childhood climbed.

To which podium do I stand to gain?
Was it I who swallowed time myself?
Am I a boy that walks the clock?
Or do I sit in rocking beams upon the waves?
Given time, given gifts and lines that I shall say?
These gift and lines are surely such a present...
Divine.

Full of years with old man ears,
With plenty stories folded up in handkerchiefs,
Of days gone back and adventures,
Adventures in a world so different yet the same,
Same toil and rush,
Same hearts and minds,
Same need for something more than age will give,
Though give a lot I'm told it does.

I feel so blessed to be full of time,
At such an early age - surely
This life is but a wink - but His Glory
Fills each moment with a hope and breadth,
For redemptive glory this full time is sufficient,
For redemptive glory I know my redeemer in this passing age,
And I am blessed to see the year roll on.

A day so full I hear it creak like ancient woods,
Crammed full of thoughts and worlds unmapped,
A trail that's littered with my thoughts,
I wander down the path a mile,
Then I pierce through undergrowth!
To scramble on some estranged pebbles,
I walk a mile down twisting turns,
Then I burst through understory!
To knock the dust off memory paths,
To age my mind like whisky in great knowledge casks.

On time and its grasp:
I am chilled and warmed at the passing day,

In motion is the beauty borne afresh,
And the flowers vibrant in the brightened noon,
I see myself an exile tend to fields of time,
To watch a sapling rise and hear the creaking bark,
Mutter wisdom of a king unseen,

Yet it is cold when time rolls to the frost,
The days are crushed and dwindle shorter fast,
I feel a burning cold, my skin attacked,
In time I kneel here in its grasp bound up,
This time foreturns and steals my heat like frost,

In minutes to the darkest nights at length,
Brief need and lengthy ponderance, I know:

Time's digits are held on marionette string,
And mold me like a potter so.

A year has passed by in my wake,
And poems flow like water now,
A closer friend to hear my thoughts,
Enshrine the days, imperfect jars,
For me to look and cobble back,
My days, their ends, their troubles, joys,
For me to hold a stack on stack,
Of tales of the wide land between,
Who I became and who I've been.

I see so many faces,
Walking with me through the days,
Talking with me through the hours,
Cracking codes and solving puzzles,
Telling of their hopes and dreams,
Walking through the little things,
Then to run for on time trains,
Just to laugh between the breaths,
Of smoking air in busy streets,
This land that I am found within,
These days that mark my childhood.

Last year's self is lost like vapour,
In seconds I am not the same,
What shall I do, my footing paper,
Am I built up or down by time,
The trees are taller than last year,
The sky is gone and shuffled new,
The mud is slipped, the grass is clear,
What shall I do, what shall I do?
A calling on the wind it comes,
Unchanging, sweeter morning dew,
Great melody for which all things run,
What blessed tune, what blessed tune!

It's Him, He's here, the Ground of Old,
He remembers me, all the stories told.

Long shadows dip into the swirling buckets of blue,
The darkened trees reach up and paint the sky,
And a beautiful cyan urfurls into navy,
I see childhood marbles in the shades,
Rolling over thread-bare carpets,

And striking fast and true on scattered glass between,
My father grafted memories so,
From when he was a boy like me,
And scattered gleaming blues and reds,
By the gutters and on the side unseen,
They bounce better on the rigid bricks,
But now we play on carpets clean.

Casting gleaming memory stones,
On my path bellow my toes,
To pick up when my wrinkles grow,
A little more with passing hours,
And faithful times will speak alone,
Of a faithful father, friend, and throw...
Me through the loop of memory hoops,
To prance along the memory paths,
And capture gleaming memory stones.

Funny faces mark the days,
And childhood months slip into years,
Hazy times too full of cheers,
And loudest laughs,
To compact in rambling remembrances.

Praise him for these gracious days,
Where time is but a word, He holds them in his heart,
And holds them still.

Greetings flipped self,
I seem to see you surprisingly sequentially,
Day after day when I observe light that twice graced my face,
I guess I see you differently to the rest of the world,
Always swapped and switched,
Always dead on except for a little crook in my neck...
That bends my head up and down and side to side,
To observe a perpetually almost there beard...
There happens to be one being who sees both my face swapped and switched and in its right sides,
Both to know and carve from dust he did.
I see many people lying dormant in the folds of my expressions,
He sees the journey and plans he has for me,
And his image imprinted into my deepest recesses.

Merry faces,
Line these stairs and call out from beneath the dust of time,
They remind us of His faithfulness and the unity He's sown,
Of the places He's taken us,
Of the people He's made us,
Thank you Lord for standing with this house and making it yours,
Help us to follow You daily and love one another as You have loved us,
Amen.

When does the young become old?
When white and grey crowns its brow?
When creeping cracks weather a sign into absurdity?
When novelty becomes mundane as a rock?
When sufficient time has passed?
How much?

Such a thing alludes the mind,
A blurred line on the page,
With no pen in sight,
Its incorporeal to the vexation of the impatient,
I guess I wouldn't know...
I'm not that old anyway.

Another year’s past,
A large slice of 16,
With a little more pepperoni on it than previously,
Covered in the small moments and quite a few big ones too.

It had a warm tomatoey base,
Rich with family and godly brothers and sisters,
Yet it was oh so spicy,
It seems that the master chef insisted.

It was a good one,
And it appears that I am three fifths more now,
Stretched, rolled and risen in Christ,
But seriously he’s always pulling though.

In the window, I see him,
Staring back at me,
His eyes on my eyes,
Light brown and deeply curious.

I follow the bump of his nose,
And ring his eyes along the momentary wrinkles,
They seem to dig in and lie still.

I blink and they remain,
Young mind and an old face,
Old mind and a young face,
A tension to tell the both of us that we are citizens of another land.

A land where wisdom comes to the humble fool,
And decay remains the side character in the story of a great salvation.