James Ackhurst: ‘On Seeing Mary in Guanyin’ and ‘Birthday Poem’

On Seeing Mary in Guanyin

I read that Japan’s secret Christians
made statues of Guanyin into statues of Mary
by giving her a child to hold.
Did they think Our Lady was different, or the same
as the Boddhisattva of Compassion?
Why alter the statues – or why use the same ones?
There’s a way of acknowledging something’s different
as a way of recognizing it’s the same.

James Ackhurst

Birthday Poem

‘Your Jesus year,’ is what they told me.
I don’t feel that; just that some shift
has taken place, from fantasy
to memory.

I still have schemes, and plans of action.
It’s just that there’s a tipping point
at which they start to be outweighed
by recollections.

That’s bred a kind of resignation;
what’s done can’t be re-done, and what’s
to come will find you, from now on,
with preparation.

Is that ‘abundant recompense’?
It’s like someone has secretly
scooped out the will, and filled it
with acceptance.

James Ackhurst