Sue Oxley

Many cats have passed my way
Made cupboard love, and come to stay
And then moved on, or stretched a while,
Purring on the welcome mat,
...

When I was a child
They took us to Mill Hill
Where we ran on the graves,
Shivering at the stones,
...

In passionate blood and rushing commitment
He runs to the killing fields, clutching the sacrifice,
Gladdened mad with ecstasy,
Caught in great shining gold-bright nets of faith.
...

The road from Wells to Avalon is built on Abbey stone
They hacked it out and cut it down and covered it with tar
And pictures of Our Lady
And the saints in all their glory
...

The baby turns and moves towards the world
Her silvered, glinting, purple shrouded skin
Is caught in nets of fingers, twisted, thin,
That grasp and hold and pull her. Now unfurled
...

A woman phoned the other day
And said that she’d seen my website
And noticed
We were born on the same year.
...

The Pacific
More beautiful than starlight,
More peaceful than a sleeping child,
Gives up its treasures
...

God within meets God without
And silence kneels to pray
Between the candle and the flame
The dawning of the day.
...

I want to be a rock star,
All leather and screaming vocals and wild curly hair,
Even though I now look like my mother
Just before she went in the home.
...

Around me the worries still spin
I'm juggling the debt that I'm in
Take here, pay there, fly a kite
Is there food enough for tonight?
...

And as for me
I am a starling in the middle of the swooping flock
And as for me
I am a berry on the Holy tree
...

See the Baby born of Mary
Come to Life as Love contained.
God in Heaven seeks to find us
Quick to bring us home again.
...

That wondrous lake, a golden sea
Of sunlit cloud is lifted, free
From swirling mists, and in its lee
The Dragon rises, stone and tree
...

On a perfect October morning,
With mist lying thin on streams of light
That washed the stones in golden memory,
We walked on spiders’ lace,
...

I am caught up in abandonment,
As if it were the theme running like an empty road -
Death, disappointment, desertion, dislike they clatter along it, year by year,
But nothing is as awful as self-pity. Christ no, Jesus no,
...

On the blackness
On the shocking distance
On the cold terrible reaches of the night
Silvered light sits and shivers at its vastness.
...

My father started haunting me
The second that he died.
As his voice sang echoes round my head
I saw through his eyes
...