Poet's Shed: Week 1

Week 1 –  2nd April 2020
written and read by Frank Scammell

Prayer (2017)

The haunting darkness, still
Waiting for the dawn.
The voice distinct, distant, distinct, gone.
Warmth, presence, power, searching light.
Be still, be still, be still and yet I move.
Mind moves from corner to corner.
Stop, listen, trust, act.
Still I’m moving, never resting
Never taking in the one
Who would speak his Word to me
Till sleep slows engines to a crawl
And I in darkness see it all.

 A Hint of Dawn (2019)

Just a hint of dawn is what I need
Like poet Thomas’ twitch of the curtain
To assure me that light will follow darkness.
The damp dark of Hezekiah’s tunnel
Opens into the healing waters of Siloam.
Prayers answers are often hidden longer
Than the impatient prayer would prefer.
How often would I hurry God along.
No delaying please. Raise Lazarus now!
Maybe the learning is in the waiting.
The waiting gives me space to question
Refine, challenge and complain
To the one who is no magic lantern
But a three-fold friend who will be known
In darkness as in blinding light.

The Sheer Sound of Silence (2019)

The sheer sound of silence
Like a presence
That cannot be touched
Enveloping me.

The sheer sound of silence
Where words are no words
But Word that is complete
Unknowable, yet known.

The sheer sound of silence
From which I flee
But yet return to find
God’s warmth embracing me.