Who is like God?
Love was the father and love the mother.
You arrived in December, anticipating another Christmas
A reward in yourself rather than a present
A pilgrimage more than a journey
Because we cannot find love in ourselves
Only with another
And you were the purest love
The world of love in a moment
To complete the place that was prepared for you
A place shaped, breathed into, palpitating, anticipated for you
And you arrived linking Winter with Spring
A week after Mandela died and two days before his burying
You arrived, your hair already hinting of gold
Woven like the wealth of the Transvaal on the South African flag
You arrived to separate the before from the after
The Anno Domini
Dividing the past from the future
You arrived to say that there was no going back
As the Ukraine edged westwards
After the charge of the dark brigade in Crimea
And your mother wrote the gospel of your life
Like a scream of joy
As the Scribes and the Pharisees fled back to the Old Testament
Making way for the new covenant of love
Turning over and seeding the soil of hope
Too big an enterprise now for the old scythes and hoes
‘We need a tractor’ you said in almost your first words
And we realised that the lines and the furrows
Could mean happiness after all.
Roy Stannard for Michael’s Naming Day 21.8.16
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