Create a Blessing

The morning comes – anticipation.

Perhaps there'll be a change,

Some inspiration,

Some source of joy.

A visitor,

An unpredicted spectacle,

Just something new

That was not here just yesterday.

Because it is Today-

The day that is forever Now!

This day, I can reach out my hand.

And change something for good.

Or reach into another's life,

And plant some beauty, share some joy.

Today I can create a brand new blessing,

But it is up to me.

Mark Humber. 28th October 2004.

If You Could See What I Can See.

If you could see what I can see,

If you saw with my eyes-

All that waits just there for you,

The natural sight defies…

If you could taste what I can taste,

The sweetest flavour known-

And keep that essence evermore

To be in memory sown…

If you could smell what I can smell,

The odour, sweet - of life.

Or draw into your nostrils oft,

Aromas of delight…

If you could hear what I can hear,

The voice of gentlest tone-

That calls with epilogues of love,

And warms the deepest soul…

If you could feel what I can feel,

So deep within your heart-

And feel the greatest love of all

From which you'd never part…

20th Dec 2004

Sometimes when one read the words one wrote years before, one feels one may have lost 

something.  At least I do now when I read this...

There was a last verse to this.  I did not post it - it is the answer to the 'If' question.  I leave it to 

the reader to answer.

To Truly Live

A day will come when I must say goodbye-

Not just to some passing acquaintance,

But to all I know see and fulfil:

To pleasure- felt with joy, and sorrow known with pain,

And so pass on to leave all that was life.

In that strange moment that exists,

Only as a line- between this life and death.

No more substantial than the ocean’s surface:

A huge expanse existing only as the end of atmosphere,

No realer than the instant when the night turns into day.

But if I linger on the threshold of transition

And have the chance to recollect, reflect:

Would I look back and say that I have truly lived,

And licked out every trace from the receptacle of life,

And from its pitcher drained each golden drop?

How will I know if I have truly lived?

By feeling that my appetite is quelled-

That I have tasted of the best of life’s delights?

Or that when I have departed, all that’s changed for good

Is not changed only in the one who has passed on.

Oh, to leave here in some new lives an epitaph-

A trace of joy planted in some empty heart.

Or in the music of some other lives to see

The influence of the master that was I,

So I might never waste the gifts He gave to me.

Mark Humber  16/04/04

Dare to Live Your Dream.

Before me was a vast inviting Universe

Encompassing a vision greater than the eye could see.

So filled with all I longed to know, do or possess-

With things of beauty, facets of a fuller life;

Some objects worldly, some divine,

Then danger-fraught, now steeped with languid solace too-

With joy through sorrow, comfort easing pain.

All this I boldly dared to dream

Dare to live your dream.

Open up your clouded eyes,

Listen to the music of a richer life

Stop to smell the flowers while you may,

And boldly dare to live your dream.

I struggled up a rough uneven stony track

And each step hurt my aching feet and tore my bleeding soul,

Until I reach the pinnacle and sat alone.

And then my ears began to hear, my eyes to see.

I looked down from the top and smiled

Into the glorious firmament of blue

And walked back down until I reached the common path

I’d  never noticed was so smooth.

Dare to live your dream.

Open up your clouded eyes,

Listen to the music of a richer life

Stop to smell the flowers while you may,

And boldly dare to live your dream.

Mark Humber 

There is a story to this one too...

One day, I was feeling rather depressed about my failed marriage.  All of my good intentions had come to nothing, and here I was - on my own again.  I decided to go down to the Cataract Gorge near where I lived in Tasmania on my own and walk around to try to clear my head. It is a most beautiful place. It was the middle of summer, and I was dressed in shorts and tank-top with no shoes on my feet and I was in self-punishment mode - the further I walked, the more rough the track became as the poem depicts, until eventually there was no track at all.  I climbed to the top of the tall hill and sat amongst the trees and bushes to nurse my hurt and pain alone.  But as I sat there, I reached a deeper or heightened consciousness.  I became aware of the beautiful view so far below me as I had never seen it before.  I started to hear the sound of every insect around me, every movement of the bushes.  Then I noticed peacock feathers around me.  I had come to their secret roost and they were sitting in the trees around me.  They sat quietly and seemed to empathise with the rest of nature with my personal agony.  It was a magic experience.  I gathered up the feathers and keep them on my wall wherever I go – a reminder of this experience.

Little Baby

 Two tiny feet wrapped up against the cold in Bethlehem,

That knew no weight or felt no pain, as they would later do.

The weariness of walking miles to find some poor, lost soul,

The feet that walked on water and climbed the mountains too.

 

Chorus

Little Baby, did You know, was it in Your mind?

Did you know what lay before You, did You know You lived to die?

And did You know then that You’d live again,

To reign as Prince of Life- little Baby, did You know?

 

Those little hands that clutch the air, as every baby’s do,

Would someday touch the leprous man that no one would go near.

The gentle hands that washed men’s feet in such a lowly way,

And flinched with pain when clumsy Roman nails pierced them through.

 

The chubby arms Your mother swaddles close up to Your chest,

Will grow to hold another child with gentle tenderness.

Those mighty arms that rose in all the might of majesty,

To quell the raging, violent storm and soothe the surging sea.

 

The tiny One His parents had to hide to save His life,

Amidst the cruel Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.

And as a Man He did not try to save Himself from death,

And yet He’ll stand as Lord and King of all the Universe.

 

Mark Humber 21^st July 2003

The Father Watched

 

Father, You watched as He walked by,

Helping and healing on this earth.

You watched Him suffer, heard His cry

And yet, You could not intervene-

But only watch.

You saw Him bear His cross’s load

To go to die at Calvary,

On that so long and painful road,

When nails were driven through His hands

You saw His pain.

But when that dreadful hour was come,

Our Jesus had to bear our sins.

The Father blackened out the sun,

So none could see the Crucified

Give up His life.

The Father waits and watches us,

And sees each sorrow, every pain.

He looks to see in each loved face

The likeness of His firstborn Son

Shine out for Him.

Mark Humber 1/3/2003

 From impressions gained from a preaching by Steve Keating at Punchbowl Christian Centre, Launceston

The Trombone Tutor

He leaned back in the carver chair

His eyes were almost closed

With hair that flowed out everywhere

Like sound waves frozen in mid-air

As he listened to my tune.

But he could no longer then sit tight

As I struggled through my piece

I wanted to pitch the notes so right

And make the sound more full and bright

Though it worsened line by line.

“Picture a sunset in the sky

An artist’s palette taken up

And strewn about by God on high.

The colours whirl and seem to fly,

Oh, try to play that tune!”

“Ever sat by a mountain stream

As it trickled on its endless way

Round the rocks of time its waters gleam

Then open up your soul and try to dream

That your song warbles down the walls.”

“Do you know the thrill of the touch of a girl?

As she lifts her sweet face to yours

To whisper, “I love you”, the heart’s cymbals whirl

Filling the night with the mighty burl

Of the everlasting ode of love.”

“Take up your instrument of gleaming gold

And blow through its still cold form

Your heart and mind, your deepest soul

To reverberate with a sound so whole

With the colours of your life’s song.”

Mark Humber 7/04/01

Inspired by my wonderful trombone teacher, Monte Mumford.