I said ‘no’, when they wanted me
to kill people
in a foreign land.
And I said ‘no’, when love wanted
to keep me
in chains of emotional dependence.
But now that death and aging have come
to ask for my hand
I cannot say no.
Gallagher
16Oct23
Christchurch
The local ‘manifested’ when
it began to echo itself.
Its self-replication
became the heartbeat
of something new
within the default.
Remaking itself faster
than it could be remelted
back into everything,
it began to stand alone.
Existence began to spawn
a self-awareness
with which to eventually
see and reflect on itself.
We are first sight
finding its way.
gallagher
02Nov2023
Christchurch
Close your eyes
And place your hands together; as if in prayer.
Open your mind’s eye
and begin to see… and to feel…
we’re going to take a journey.
There is sunlight here that caresses your skin
and a breeze that pulls small feathers through your hair.
You are in the wheat fields of God’s love where,
just as the crops come and go,
so do the people rise and fall.
See the generations, tumbling forward,
one over another around you.
There are children, age, beauty
and death here.
Let your mind’s eye close again
and feel the warmth of your hands
still pressed together.
And let silence and being fill you…
and emptiness and light.
Then open your eyes and look again….
Here is the trusting child’s laughter.
And there, the warm brown skin of a woman.
And there… the eyes of a friend.
Children running through
the fields of flowers,
the couples loving each other
and the old people watching
it all with great compassion.
Feel the warmth
of the old person’s hand on your arm.
Gallagher
05 Oct 1988
Mexico City
– I was on my way into the Contra/Sandinista conflict in Nicaragua
with Witness For Peace to when I wrote this in Mexico City as we
were receiving orientation instructions. Each of us wrote a
reflection to read to the others. This was mine.