Paul du Plessis Poems

Statuesque in plainsong chant
The organ pedals with toes tapping
Transporting the spirit heavenwards
In rising descants
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Involved in creation
Yet part of what he made;
Before the beginning
He keeps to our time;
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One candle extinguished
While another flickers
Over the emptiness of a chair
Vacated in the loneliness
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Translate its meaning for all people
In universal understanding
Of mysteries barely grasped.
Grappling for words
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Retreat to Lindisfarne
In search of the Holy Isle
In sabbatical seclusion
Close to the beginnings
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Struggling to find a voice
to explain the mystery of faith
in elusive eloquence;
hand-writing illegible,
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He’s the traveller with a difference
Who stops when others move
Past the one waylaid and robbed;
Going beyond first aid
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Ears pricked up
To receive the prophecy.
More than his Word – His words
Dangled between a pair of ear-rings
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Unknown that night
Yet known from birth;
Following as second
Wanting to be first;
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The carpenter’s son
Though not his son
Leaves home and the sawdust
For a journey of discovery
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