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Our home looked out across the seas

I looked out every morning

Out across the mangrove trees

To see the new day dawning.

I could see our house cow grazing

Or calmly chewing cud

And all the she-oaks waving

As the trees came into bud.

We planted native trees there

And a vegie garden too

A lemon tree had fruit to bear

And we had an outback loo!

That was the home of our youth

Where we brought our babies home

But now we are ‘long in the tooth’

And all our young ones are grown,

Our new home now is quite small

And it is low to the ground

With ease of access to all

The dear friends who still come around.

But strong is the roof overhead

And the windows keep out the rain,

And warm is our comfortable bed

So we thank the dear Lord once again.

He has blessed us with long years together

And children who follow Him too.

In the evenings we still pray together

Many thanks our dear Saviour to You.

A Letter to My Grandfather

Dear Grandfather whom I never knew,

Let me write a letter to you.

Like Abram seeking the promised land

You trusted that God had in all in hand

When you left your native shore

Looking for land where there was more,

More than enough for your many sons

To live and grow and be the ones

To feed the people with milk and cream.

You bought a farm beside a stream

And there your family lived and grew

All becoming a credit to you.

Sundays were spent in needful work

And always you drove your family to kirk.

When the preacher was found in conduct sinister

You answered “but I don’t worship the minister!”

Your faith was lived in word and deed—

Food freely given to those in need,

And many a swagman who came to you door

Was given a bed on the hayshed floor.

A crippled son returned to your aid—

His wife was paid as a dairy maid.

His family lived with you again.

An orphaned baby was welcomed in.

In all this you were helped by your loyal wife

 Who shared your faith, your view of life.

She laughed and toiled by your side,

Many years since she became your bride.

And so I thank the God above

For I am wrapped around with love.

Your family became my uncles and aunts

Who loved me dearly and I can’t

Begin to imagine how much I owe,

As onward day by day I go,

To the grace of one I never knew.

I write to send my thanks to you.

Mother’s Feel Pain

I remember you my little son

The day that you were born

When you came safely into the world

We all rejoiced that morn.

But mothers bear the agony

Mothers feel the pain

Not once, not twice, or thrice

But again and again and again.

I remember a Christmas morning

The year that you were two,

You were playing “golf” with your father

Striving the best you could do.

I remember you during your school days

When learning came easy for you

Complaining the work was too boring

When given assignments to do.

I remember you went on to uni

An arts degree then nursing too,

And you brought home a beautiful lassie

A life time partner for you.

I remember the day that you took us

The house you were buying to view.

Your life was so full of bright promise

We greatly rejoiced then with you.

But suddenly it was all over

Your motorbike crashed with a car.

We watched by your bedside in sorrow,

But already your soul had flown far.

And mothers bear the agony

Mothers feel the pain

Not once, not twice, or thrice

But again and again and again.

The Anzac Spirit – A mother’s lament

Don’t speak to me of the Anzac Spirit

Of battles lost and won.

There are no winners, only losers,

When nations, many nations go to war.

At Gallipoli they fell

Eight thousand on that shore

In France we lost maybe

Fifty thousand more.

Each one a young man in the prime of life

Each one with a father, mother, sister, brother, wife.

Look there, lying in the mud,

My son lying dead.

He would have been twenty in a month.

He took a bullet in his thigh and fell

Then a tank has crossed his chest and crushed his head.

They know him by his dog tags

And send the message home,

“Killed in action” one of many such.

I open up the telegram

My mind is full of dread

I have to tell the family what I read.

A young girl, a teacher, whom he planned to wed,

His brother and his sisters gather round.

I go to find his father who left thirteen years ago

And whom I haven’t spoken to since then.

We speak and cry together, united in our grief.

We cannot hold his funeral

Or bring his body home.

There are many thousand stories just like ours.

Don’t speak to me of the Anzac Spirit

Of battles won or lost

Our souls lie broken on the battle field

Our Anzac spirit crushed into the mud.

Consider the Lilies

Consider the Lilies

The carpet stretched before me,
Red and yellow and blue
The art of Creator and gardener
Has brought the scene to view.

Red tulips are boldly bursting
Gold daffodils dance behind
But the blues flow on as a river
With banks all flower-lined.

Each bloom has its own perfection
As in its place it shines
But together they blaze with glory
A glory that fades with time.

A camera has captured the moment
And frozen it here for you
So may we each in our own place
Shine with a glory true.

Perhaps each colour and story
Of our lives lived here below
Will make a picture of glory,
Forever in Heaven to glow.

Alison Cunningham © 2011

time capsule

Queensland Women Writers are creating a time capsule to be opened in 2059 - this was my contribution.
Dear future readers,
What will fifty years bring? What sort of world do you live in, you who open this time capsule and read this letter? It is a question that stretches my mind.
I remember in the year nineteen fifty three when I was at high school our class was asked to write an essay on the topic “The World in Fifty Year’s Time”. The previous fifty years had seen great strides from horses to automobiles, for the first powered flight to commercial flights; so what would the next fifty years bring? We imagined a helicopter on every roof top, and motor ways like giant conveyor belts so that you keyed in your destination then sat back and rested until you car was disgorged at the end of your journey. Some of us imagined a third world war so horrific that nothing was left on this planet but scorched earth, dead bodies and insects. How little we knew!
The reality has proved much more wonderful. We have seen men walk on the moon and satellites photograph the whole earth in great detail. Computers came into being; firstly great monsters that occupied whole storeys of buildings and required precise air-conditioning. Now there is a computer in almost every home and class room in the developed world and almost everyone between the ages of eight and eighty can search the internet and email each other all over the world in seconds. Global Positioning Systems direct drivers to precise locations. Technology has advanced indeed.
But what about ideas? Have we gone forward or backward in our thinking? Wycliffe, Luther, Tyndale, Calvin and later the Wesley brothers were among those who brought Christian enlightenment to the world. Darwin put forth his theory of evolution which led to Hitler’s dream of a master race. This in turn led to the “final solution” and the horrors of the concentration camps. Marx’s theories sort to bring about a world where everyone would be equal. Instead the result in Russia, China and North Korea was the regimes of Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and Kim Il-sung – absolute rulers who tolerated no opposition. Now in the year two thousand and ten the rising ideology is Islam a system which seeks to dominate the world through jihad, the holy war fought by “martyrs”, suicide bombers, wreaking indiscriminate destruction on all and sundry.
So what are my predictions for the day when this capsule is opened in October 2059? I predict that technology will have advanced tremendously: that natural areas, our present national parks, will still be treasured: but that many species will have been lost for ever. In the realm of ideas I predict that Islam, like Nazism and Communism before it will be discredited: that Christianity will still flourish especially in China, India, Africa, South America and in North Korea.
By how much have I missed the mark? I wish I could see your faces as you read this letter!
May God bless you all,
Alison Cunningham.

On your wedding day

Your have stepped through the curtain, Kathryn
From one life to the next,
From girlhood to womanhood in one day.
We rejoiced, we celebrated,
we sent you on your way-
Dressed all in white, the veil on your head,
The veil, the symbol of the curtain
through which you tread.
Your friends in pink beside you;
Your family all around you;
A proud young man beside you.
God bless you on your way!