Summer is over

September 2006

summer is over
an end to sitting on the fence
a voice beneath your certainties
shakes the settled patterns
like a colder breeze that heralds distant winter

strange lands lie waiting
beyond your southern horizon
summer is over,
and you must go or perish
here in a world no longer yours
or on the way, but in hope
your star and compass often dark
glimpsed briefly between clouds

at journey's end, another summer
not like the first one
new seeds, new fruit to refresh the migrant
burnt by life between summers
warmed for a season
until the north calls again

like the inner call of the migrating bird, where does god call you?
where is your bird migrating to?
what do you want to do for god?
what do you need along the way?

[there are square sheets of coloured paper with origami instructions on one side. hand out pens and paper]

take one of the sheets of paper and write your hopes and prayers for the journey ahead on the reverse side, the side without the instructions. then we're going to fold them to make origami birds

[show them how to fold it according to the instructions printed on it - some of the folds are not obvious]

[music while they write and fold: kate bush 'sunset' and 'aerial tal' from the album 'aerial']

then a prayer by someone else and we hang up the origami birds on lines strung across the church at head height.