xv. Signs and Wonders - The Future

The Future:

Late 14c. from Old French futur, from Latin futurus ‘going to be, yet to be, as a noun, ‘the future’.

On a Star Caught in a Tree

for my daughter

Seated on the front garden seat, the sky

is a middle-aged blackboard of both sign

and cipher - present and past. For you I

know it's as new as the small sewn line

of cross-stitch you clutch in your fingers.

Something to be worked upon, added to

and talked about, embellished by a blur

of questions. But I am held by the blue

tapestry of sky where you're pointing

to a star caught in a tree between blind

branches. While you ask me if by morning

it will be able to get out? Inclined

to equivocate but bound to this show

of cosmic irony - only say I hope so.

Jeff Guess

Reflection:

There is story from Japan of a young archery student who travelled to the country’s greatest archer for advice and tuition. He found him at last on the top of a mountain but without a bow or arrows. The archery master said nothing but simply went through what the young archery student thought was a charade or mime of the master firing an arrow. Each time he loosed what seemed an imaginary arrow a bird fell out of the sky at his feet. The master then simply spoke to the student and said ‘There are few who can own such a bow and arrows – your future is their purchase’.