I give to this land,
and the land to me,
that down millennia God has graced:
here in the depth of this hollow oak
the satin grain,
the thornless wood,
this hall of God,
this belfry tower
the holly’s way beyond the font,
through death and suffering,
through re-birth
to Christ,
to God,
to all.
Andrew Pratt -/2/2004
To Alan Garner, Cheshire author.
Things we know are never wholly certain,
we fathom and explore,
we test the tangled evidence
while seeking to decide.
This is the time of crisis,
of decision,
a time for making choices.
Life sometimes stutters,
moving on in stages.
At others it seems seldom interrupted.
Day to day passes without incident.
Then the cancer, infarction,
crippling us with indecision.
Death is inevitable since our birth.
But should we, as the poet wrote,
‘strive against the dying of the light’?
Or, windhover like, roll, riding on the steady air,
swing in mastery of this fluid existence?
Broken pinioned we may plummet,
God forbid.
But is it worth the struggle?
To claw heavenward,
perhaps survive,
at what present cost?
And all that now determines action will sound ephemeral,
of little consequence.
Such impulses drive the decisions we will make,
for life or death,
in love or grace.
© Andrew Pratt 30/11/2018
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