(Morepork)
Ruru (The Morepork) It’s dusk, time to hunt, I hear the racket and there I find you perching mobbed by blackbirds three - loud cries of distress. You hunter of small birds and moths are not wanted here, yet it is where you belong. And there you sit at peace, so still, watching, waiting, not flustered, nor distracted by heckling birds. In your brown speckled beauty you look at me, as if to say, when darkness comes Blackbirds fade away. So calmly you wait watching a moth flutter your way. Father, I am so quickly perturbed. Nagging noises polluting quiet places so I can no longer hear wind rustling leaves, ocean breakers, birds flying nor their song - I’m unsettled by discordant noise. Call into being once more - restore quiet places. Jesus Christ amidst life’s relentless racket shield my sanctuary deep within. And like this morepork I be at peace within a hecklers’ world. Grant me a listening heart, a mind that seeks the eyes of Christ, a soul that communes with You. Holy Spirit, teach me to listen deep within, I follow you away from disruptive racket and unsound quiet places so I hear words that flow in intimacy - You speak, I listen amidst the quiet and the din. Now it’s dark the morepork glides amongst kohekohe silent in flight. Hunting, it perches on rotten tree top in sight from my window. There it hoots, ‘more-pork’, the only sound heard - no hecklers reply.
A poem from Vocation as Resistance © Craig A. Roberts 2022. (paperback, ebook, audio book)