A MIGHTY FALL

This poem first appeared about five years ago in a collection called The Witnesses by Marie Barrett. With her husband Maurice she runs a tuition centre in Granagh (or did back then),but I last knew them about 30 years ago when they were involved with the Christian scene in Limerick. The book begins with a 68 page account of true events that took place in a squatting community in London in 1974 where the author says she received " a baptism of fire there in the company of drug-addicts and drop-outs" The rest of the volume is given over to her poetry, This, from the afterword ,describes Marie's spiritual sensibilities..." Time is running out,she is aware, for the system of things as we know it,for the current world order as the Kingdom of God and of Jesus,his son,approaches.Good news for all people everywhere who await Jesus' return. It is to them,she believes, that the following words of comfort and encouragement are given, received by her from the Lord on June 23,1998 -

Believe that as I am

so shall you also be "

GOSh

.

THE TREE

I am the tree

and subject of a too severe attack.

I would have borne it well

though some say I deserved my lot-

I had too much,having nothing

and they picked and pulled

until I felt the wrench.

I am that tree

and must with it

see my green wood fade.

Time is measured to me

still more slowly now-

somewhere in my heart I heard it

the blunt axe fall.

Marie Barrett