Poetry from Alan Martin

Image from Stefan Keller at Pixabay

THEY ALSO SERVE

Stern news incoming,
rips through our certainties,
we are all collateral in this ghastly war.
How can…
but no sea is too deep for this human abyss.
In bewilderment when hope is sputtering,
we turn at last to the numinous,
and in that very turning have acuity…
and release.
We have now to be hawkish
but was there no other lead up…?
Thinking it through
is thinking wasted
on an impossible koan.
I seek firmer ground
in blameless trivia,
awed by the defiant
who simply return to
their own sweet ways.
It is a bedrock of pacifism,
and the heroes have sanctuary.
And the sun rises without thought,
on all that has been thought,
all that could ever be thought.
We need, so often
more ends than means,
more equipoise in empty hours.
We need the angel of our clear blue skies,
our masterly dextral brain;
the wordless sun in our heads
in a universe of universalism.
Now that we know about knowing
in all its wayward guises,
now, for goodness’ sake,
we can surely do something.
And the sun rises imperturbably
on all it supports;
all that could ever be true.

Carw, March 23

Alan Martin is a Pembrokeshire native who has worked in several UK locations as an engineering inspector. He now lives on a smallholding in mid-county with his wife and son