Matt’s dedication: Poem from Stanzi

MATTHEW JOHN TOOKE

Matthew.
I have seen your river
bright and full and sparkling with fish,
green and gleaming things.

I have waded waded into
the water deeply,
clumsily hoping to catch words
to show this picture, this love, this dream.

Matthew.
A man – a man – once made many fish from two
leaving over so much
the basket-carriers didn’t know
what to do.

This man kneads the bread of life,
feeding need until more is left
over than all we ask or imagine;
Cups that flow over
And over
And over

This man, this GOD I know,
His words changed into a stream
and the stream flows with life.
Can you hear Him calling
the fishermen to fish until
they become the stream?
Calling soft-handed masters to wash
Their servants’ dusty feet,
and hoarders to cast
their bread upon the waters?

MATTHEW.
THIS is what I pray for you:

Wide, wild water
freshly living and filled
with lively grace,
silver fish that miraculously
multiply.

Matthew J.Tooke may
your life be filled with
pools of greenness like your eyes
the blue of water,
grey pregnant skies;
may your life be flooded
with these things I love for you –
may yours be the river
of revelations twenty-two
and yours the water
of psalm twenty-three.

Little precious boy much loved
may you truly, splashingly
LIVE
and may your swimming, soaring soul
always and in truth
be free.