I met the leper

(Ngatiawa retreat 2014)

He sat astride his majestic

life, head filled with dreams and

hopes, draped in chivalry and war.

Certainty drew him on his direction.

The other stood to one side of

this uncommon route, confident in festering

sores, head filled with shards of dreams

and hopes drowning in decay.

A moment only, the horse

stumbles. Astonished, he

sees, and reaches out to find

his own rotting face, corroded

heart and ruined soul. A

gasp, not of a foul

stench but a sweet scent

of life rediscovered. In his tentative

caress of the other his darkness is

held in love. He is

undone. He is the leper.

I am undone,

and left stripped naked before my father.

Colourful Dreamer