Die Tydlose Druppel van Hoop

In die begin is selfs die snik van die muur se klok onhoorbaar sag so
tussen deur die gedreun van die murmurerende maan
en al die sterre wat so vassteek in die wol van winterwolke.

In die begin gee my ore hulle lawwe probeerslae om enigeiets te help hoor
maar die swiep van rowende roetines
verdoof en bind my sinne vas met klomp klein tengerige toutjies.

So bietjie later breek die gloeilamp met sy gretige gons
die stilte soos my vingers soekend soos remmerige ratte
die hipotetiese stof op die knoppe van ‘n verhulde sleutelbord slaat.

So bietjie later hoor ek hoe die tydlose druppel van hoop homself plat plak
teen die droë bodem van die emmer wat ek al vir koninklike kere
gebruik om die afvallighede van my woning te was.

Maar nou lê ek net met die bede dat ek môre meer soos vannag vandag
kan stap met ‘n emmer wat omtrent oorloop
sodat ek die onsaligheid van my siel met ‘n messelaarshand kan weg was.

Wie is Jy

Jou ware identiteit, dit is die asemrowende skepsel wat al jou houtjies kreun om na toe bewerk te word, word onthul deur Jesus Christus.

Terwyl my brein bietjie vir ‘n draffie deur ‘n woud gegaan het, het dit die gedagte “klippe” raak getrap. Daarna, soos die gees gedrewe paadjie gekronkel het, het ek deur die skrif gestrompel waar Petrus (wat rots beteken) sy ware identiteit gegee word deur Jesus. Jesus het later volle asem in hierdie eenvoudige naam (en misterieuse identiteit) geblaas:

“Ek verklaar nou vir jou: ‘Jy is Petrus. Op hierdie rots sal Ek my kerk oprig, en al die magte van die doderyk sal dit nie oorwin nie.

Maar die koekie rondom identiteit hou nie net hier op met krummel nie! Verdere huppel in die woud het toe ‘n glasie melk vir my koekieronde kieste geskink: ons elkeen word ingeseën en opgerig in ons identiteit wanneer ons in kontak met Jesus Christus kom!

Daar word beskryf in die skrif dat gelowiges Jesus se liggaam uitmaak, en dat Jesus die “kop”, of “hoof” van die liggaam is. So… ons is deel van Christus, want ons is Sy liggaam!

Daar is geen twyfel dat Jesus direk vir iemand in verhouding met Hom kan seën en bekend maak wat daardie een se identiteit is nie. Maar as ons as die liggaam ons Hoof reg opgeskroef het, sal dit gebeur dat Hy identiteite oproep en bekend maak deur ons.

Mag ons met nuwe (of dieselfde, afhangende van hoe oulik jy is) oë kyk na elkeen wat oor ons pad kom en bewus wees dat Jesus aan ons toutjies kan trek sodat ons mekaar en die res van Sy liggaam in gehoorsaamheid kan seën deur identiteite te herken. Dit is tog lekker om vrugte aan mekaar te hang wat lewe bring ? en nie die vrugte van die wet wat net dood bring nie?

Hier is die vers:

Hy het eers sy eie broer Simon gekry en vir hom gesê: Ons het die Messías gevind — dit is, as dit vertaal word, die Christus. En hy het hom na Jesus gelei. Toe kyk Jesus hom aan en sê: Jy is Simon, die seun van Jona; jy sal genoem word Céfas, wat vertaal word Petrus.

Galmende Gebare

Kraglose woorde soos galmende simbale,
klok ons eie wil vir ieder se kwale.

Hak tog net die Vaderhand ritme!
En wyk tog net met dié aneurisme!

Los die handeknoei van niet en niks,
let ons seisoene – bruik dié Flits.

Bid geïnspireerde note, kerns van krag.
En stuur die gevat met Sy bekwame mag.

Daagliks hoop, daagliks sterwe,
Dis vandag dat ons Sy koninkryk mag beërwe,

Sy reën giet altyd, en sink in ons grond,
Maar mag dit wat groei nie wees wat wond.

Die berge en heuwels druk geregtigheid seer,
Sodat al die dor bome kan verbrand en verskeur.

Sien altyd eerste hin balk hin eie oog,
Want jou broeder spieël… net jou eie voog.

The Chamber – Part 1

I was caught within a deafening and numbing silence that stretched from the start of infinity. I sat within what I pictured was an old, wooden chamber – dragged across the drops and rises of an infinitely dead and silent ocean. I was constantly woken by the most subtle creaks of the surrounding timber and its continuous groan, which kept on ringing my attention to my everlasting drift. But from somewhere in the darkness a faint knock hooked my dusty ears.

“…Who’s there?” I groggily demanded. The words flowed like sand and scratched my dry throat. It had been eons since I last spoke. There has been no life around me for countless… lonely years, and it was of no use wasting breath into the deaf void.

I tried to swivel my head, hoping that my good ear could track the unbroken knock. The sudden excitement lit a fuse in a mouldy chamber within my dormant heart. A breath or two later I finally felt the blast, which sent waves of pins and needles steering from my torso to the tips of my toes. But then it rippled back and doubled the pressure that surged within my unforgiving skull.

Then the knocking faded…

The only sound that remained was the soft and familiar howl of the wind harassing my chamber of evading slumber. But the wind soon died off, and was replaced by the silence slowly trickling back with its routine and gut-wrenching flood. At least as the level of emptiness rose, it brought soothing from the pins and needles that pricked and irritated the flesh of my feet – and after a while it finally wiped the tear from my engraved cheek.

The knocking had successfully triggered my struggling windmill-brain back in to thought. I haven’t milled a thought in ages! The thought of actually thinking suddenly tapped around like a blind crab on the unfamiliar stone floor. Its pointy toes ticked all the widespread neurons, and its tired claws bumped into lost memories – oh how those were long forgotten! Or at least that’s what I think I had once thought.

I sat confused. It was still very dark.

The knocking entered back into the vessel with a light tap, or was this only my mind’s little and bewildered crab? How could it return so soon? My head lifted and my ever fixed body cracked. I almost forgot that all my limbs were solid rock. And even worse; I was submerged in chains of mildew.

My eyes got curious. I opened my stony eyelids with an uncomfortable scratch. I could only hoist them up a sliver – it has been to this day three hundred and twenty two years. But I peered, as always, into the never-ending abyss.

“I demand to know who’s there!?” I coughed, and launched some more grains of sand into flight.

With all my will I wanted to jump up and run to the origin of those forsaken knocks! But I could only sit… dreadfully frozen as the knocking in the distance developed into a painful drum. I soon became a figuratively shattered heap – unsoothed by the drabs of tears dribbled down by each far-off and stationary thump. Why another infinite reminder of death within my already infinite catastrophe?

I had wanted to die a million times within the infinity before – just to end the forever unfathomable amount of nothingness. I’ve forever been floating in this uninvited and seemingly undeserved sentence of infinite isolation. This surely couldn’t be the final bell of death now.

Back then, when I lived, I didn’t know… how passivity could ever birth such a consequence! My boulder-like shoulders bulged with this sudden flame of anger at my cursed and ignorant flesh. But I can’t blame it now, it died off a long time ago and left me within this rocky mess.

“I give you a choice. Please choose something. Now.” A brilliant voice echoed from where the knocks had stopped.

Well, the first half of this infinity I spent thinking, and I assuredly knew that choosing nothing was the same as choosing not. So I chose the opposite of nothing – and the opposite of not. And with that, a blindingly small light broke through the keyhole of what I knew was a door – the door my submission of will and wandering thought had now unlocked.

“There’s only this single doorway, there’s only one light.” The voice said. And with my acceptance, the door flung open and I was bathed in glorious light.

<Continued in Part 2>

Eternal Life

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16

The Only Doorway

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

Balance

The deadly quiet oceans take their silent snuffle;
these titanic tarns like uncomfortable carpets furling,
over the sweaty planes of the unbalanced man –
pressing forth to cover all of his mountains and valleys.

His topsoil is trembling, it groans and quakes,
as his universe gets perfectly pulled into order
by almost every neuron fibre’s flame
mightily alight within His hard-bitten body.

The stony, strong legs, like cold and breathless planets,
elegantly cut their way across the sliced sheets of nothing,
to get his universe into balance and into order –
warmly wrenched to the draw of the glorified Sun.

The arms of the stardust-giant chant the strain.
Oh these pillars of grace trying to keep it all afloat.
His elbows bend to boast the Craftsman work.
His calloused hands are now his unorthodox feet.

Are we those essential hands? Those prominent feet?
Do we realise that “the LORD wilt bless the righteous;
with favour wilt He compass him as with a shield”?
I beg to stay within His house – the multitudes of His mercy!

Do not lay asleep between the shards of the rebellious and wicked;
the evil that falls by own counsel –
that which He smites into cold, hard nothing.
Oh, how “The LORD abhors the bloody and deceitful.”

But find rest; everything shall return to how it was breathed out at the start.

Loneliness

Op Perdehoef Stofpad

Op perdehoef stofpad in die kontrei,
‘n kronkelpad, ‘n klippepad,
Is die Vader van Nou,
besig om handpalms oop, arms uit te sprei.

“O Langelier, Bokkie, warrellose wind,
gekniel in die midde van vlegsels
en stringe vetgevoerde druif,
laat My tog jou gees ontwaak!

O Langelier, Bokkie, pryslose munt,
Een uit My boesem van belofte,
kom tog in hierdie somerseisoen
jou aankoms maak!

O Langelier, Bokkie, My hart se punt,
kom proe saam die vetgeswelde druif,
die trosse purperrooi en heuningsoet.
Kom ons kraak tog oop jou hemelse granaat!

O Langelier, Bokkie, heilige kind,
kom huppel in die kokers salwing,
sodat ons dit in die gronde kan pers,
en die genesing in die aarde in kan dans tot laat!”

Kom trippel saam deur die stofwolke van perdehoefvlei,
Sodat ons kan verdwaal en giggel en sing en lag,
sodat ons, stofvuil en olienat, in eenheid kan rus,
op die Heilige heuwel, of waarheen okal Hy ons lei.

Oh Dandelion, Achene Tree

Oh lion’s tooth, yay high clock, achene tree,
oh dandelion offspring, flying free,
why is His instruction so divergent?
The yearlong promises twisted non-convergent?

With net in hand and longing fingers,
I still look at thee with hesitant lingers.
‘Cause the end, no shift, through faith in sight;
I catch you at Zion’s hill with all my might.

But, instruction lately hath commanded: “Let her fly…
Let her be consumed by the ol’ starry sky.”
Flaming contrary to lowly logic thought,
It’s not a ‘shall’; it’s a cautiously weighted ‘ought’.

Alas, with informed decision and swallowed pride,
I kick into a vacant page with stammering stride.
And while you claim the stars; I’ll patiently wait,
‘til He sends me running ’round that idyllic hill’s slate.

Where I’ll try and net you in, with ‘chutes aflutter,
I may break cold sweat, I may start to stutter.
But if I have you, and you have me,
We’ll have a story to tell, oh, my bright-eyed achene tree.