A Birthday Celebration: Age 71

                   Age 71

FAITH
Above the panelled walls a balustrade,
And through the uprights, lives of the saints
Martyrs and mystics.
And coming down, sometimes,
Through the obligatory silence,
The sound of Stan singing, "I'll be your sweetheart"!
The most ungainly and forgetful of saints, and ships carpenter,
Who once slipped between two hulls into the Mersey.
And Bob: bald, rotund and robust:
A miniature priest with a heart of gold,
Gardener and custodian of bric-a-brac,
Who lived for his parish, the sick and dying,
And whose party piece was, "Little Billy Williams".
And Bert, who, following his own star, and broken
In body and mind,
Would appear at the kitchen window,
And who didn't have to ask.

Poor, chaste, and obedient,
I made my will;
And leaving myself behind
Changed my name.
One with Christ, I would bear with Him,
To Calvary.

In an age of renewal, and crisis,
(I was floundering on my way to Calvary)
He came to the door and knocked.
I have it still, the little book he gave me:
Bible readings, from the Bible Reading Fellowship.
Chancing upon an error, he had marked it, as was his duty:
Readings from the Gospels, prayers for life.

We met on a busy London street,
The priest who found him,
Sitting by the side of his bed his breviary open on his lap,
When the Almighty laid claim to his soul.

The pain that is, at the core of being,
Has no physical properties,
So we must pray, and hope - and wait!
For the gift of tears.

_______________
© Cormac E McCloskey
5th July / 14-16th October 2012

ittle Billy Williams
(An old Music Hall song)

Little Billy Williams found a penny in the garden

One fine summer's day.

And as little Billy Williams never had more than a farthing,

He cried: "Hip Hip! Hooray!

Now in the tobacconists where cigarettes were sold

Billy spied a packet that was labelled green and gold.

Five little fags in a dainty little pack,

Five cigarettes that cost one D.                        [a penny]

Five little whiff's and in five little jiffs

He was rolling on the tramway lines

Wishing he could touch the cable

Feeling greener than the label

Fro little Willie's "Wild Woodbine." 

Mersey: The River Mersey
Bert, who all to obviously physically and mentally damaged by his precarious lifestyle, (he lived in a shack somewhere in the New Forest), would tramp around religious houses, and other places, in search of something to eat.