Month: March 2022

The Hearth of the multitude.

The memorial bench, a seat in the mystery of time,

where I can sit, and my heart swell with the beauty

of the place where he sat and contemplated the view.

—————–

The mist far out to sea cooled the sultry spring air,

Silent, eyes closed, no wind and somewhere not far

a bud opened, a tiny deflection of air like a butterfly

——-

which has flown past in a soft, floating, rocking flight,

and there, I listened for an insect crawling between the

grasses and bluebells and wondered why it ever was

——–

thus that humans were blind to the beauty of the tiny,

ephemeral life and deaf to the opening of a rambling

rose, their sense of smell missing the coconutty gorse.

—-

Time will hurry on and this seat will rest many a one,

who will miss, like I have, many tiny signs that we’re

not alone, and we share our lives with a myriad things.

——-

Pulsing hearts and gleaming anthers, populated homes

and glorious, awe inspiring flight of birds and bees

and if we knew would we take consider their cares too?

A Sacred Moment

The cloud had darkened, and the lane lengthened,

as my dragging feet walked the dusty way home.

My fears were growing and the worry charging

me with the cost of my acuity. The news was bad.

——

Travelling slowly, saddened and searching, I heard

nearby in a green, thorny thicket a few grams of

feathers, bones and flesh rustled and fluffed, then

interrupted my daydream with a loud, clear call.

—–

A wren, with his hoisted tail, blew my sad and 

gloomy thoughts away as he swelled and music

trebled from his tiny throstle, thrilling me and

retuning me to life in that sacred hopeful place.

—–

Somewhere else a bird sang to his love with

zees and another performed an aria, atop a tree.

They are bastions of creation, holding in their

prayerful songs of praise the glory of their God.

Ukraine and Evil

She stepped over the grim reminder that somewhere, someone wants her dead,

harried, frightened, threatened, fastened to her people by a thread of vile, red

evil that looks to reject what was not perfect – but was the way they lived, and

gave of their best for their nation and now they ration their food and water.

—-

He took their peace, he took his lying ease, saying that their race would cease,

for no reason,  only the season was right for his arrogant, derogatory rant.

They suffer his noise, their boys, from uni, in front lines with guns to try and

drive the poisonous actions of a deranged faction, a reaction of the paranoid.

—

No-one can ever win at war, there are only losers but evil succeeds in its

purpose to subvert, deny, destroy young lives, creating deserts in land and heart.

She hides behind the broken wall, hears the call of carrion crows and weeps,

her heart is broken and still his heart is cold, calculating and cruelty escalates.

The Rainbow

The arching rainbow cleared to trees and came to earth in the city,

The colours vibrant and the ghost of a second beginning to shine,

A vibration ran through me as I stared in awe and saw the truth that 

love and grace are all colours and so we celebrate our diversity as

the bow arches over a world divided by blindness to the power 

of the prism.

A Cracked Pot

The pottery wheel brings the writhing clay to life,

its whirring pulses through the hands, moulding 

the sticky gooey mess, growing its potential and

finding its nature through touching, loving and

caressing the dirty lump until it reveals 

its hidden glory.

—

Steadily the rhythm grows and a shape is formed,

a vessel glad to be created, as the potter boldly

pulls and pursues the pleasure of sensing their

own power flowing into the clay, carefully seeing

beauty materialising with a sense of pride in 

its inner glory.

—

Decorated and fired the fluted vase stands, and

accepts admiration and the echoes of desire

to fulfil its purpose. But, the proud purchaser will 

decide.  Will it live out its lifeless life overflowing 

with tulips, lilies, lupins or empty as Art revealing

its outer glory?

—

What am I? 

The vase on show?

The cup to carry water to the thirsty?

The vase overflowing with beautiful flowers?

The squat pot full of plants that poison or pollute?

I know I am cracked broken by the pitfalls of living?

Did I resist the creator as divine love shaped my calling?

Or, will that passion of re-generation in the welcomed Spirit 

reveal through my cracks love’s amazing light, glory and grace?

War on children

She stood hugging her troubled Teddy bear

in a place that is called somewhere safe, a

smiling helper asked her name. Gripping

her furry friend she smiled and cried. The 

words stuck in her throat for, how could she

say the words that break the silence and

blast her back into the tumbled world of

bangs, dust, cries, screams and tears on her

mother’s cheeks through the moving window.

—-

Twisting her head, she spied others like her

with strangers’ heads bent towards them,

offering packets of sandwiches, drinks 

and everywhere she looked her eyes were

searching for her mother, her father and

listening for their words and surely they

will call her name. But in all the noise of

kindness her broken heart silently called

for them and someone tried to gather her

into their arms and softening their voice,

—-

said, ‘Ucisz moje maleństwo,’ over and

over, covering their own horror and pain

by repetition and under the words they

prayed for patience and strength and that

this skinny sobbing girl would begin to

trust them to care for her. Slowly, sobs

steeped in terror subsided and a the 

small hand slipped into theirs. All round

the world this moment repeats to the

——-

tearing of the fragment of a child’s life.

And nightmares and silence fold in on

a small person, who had been tucked in

their own bed after a story, and known

that in the morning their мати would 

come in and lovingly call them to wake, 

go to school or to the park after hugs.

and they were safe, loved and secure,

and it is all gone because Putin says so.

—–

He has sent these children into terror 

and there will be many who respond

and help, heal and nurture them into a

safe place again. My heart breaks too

for he has sent them wantonly, wickedly

into traffickers’ snares to be hurt, killed, 

abused, and enslaved by the callous,

cruel, inhuman people. This evil crime 

of sending children to a hell is his too.

War on Pregnant Women

It was the pregnant woman cradling her hope

that shook me, a brave baby born to turmoil, 

no real future, freedom of speech and the liberty

to choose a path where hissing missiles and 

guzzling guns will not overwhelm the fragile

life that sparks behind closed contented eyes.

–

A year ago a couple’s loving embraces creates

a foetus, cells growing and separating in her

wonderful womb – in a time of political peace

and their precious neighbours were not vilified

by Putin’s army of trolls, and a settled peoples 

—

scared for their very lives as weapons wrench

the ridged roofs from their heads and harry the

poor and cancer sick lying in their winter beds.

They’re now starving, shivering, staying stalwart

in the face of agonising choices and harm,

weary women again running to find safety and 

a moment of grace for their horrified children.

—-

The human love that receives us at birth has

been warped and twisted, re-modelled until

it is a hatred, which like a volcano spills its

boiling lava over a verdant land burning,

steaming death in its severing of the living

in a holocaust of terror and no one ever

wins

in

war

and

as the mother

and her

baby

dies.

My Country’s Shame

The shame falls on me like showers of hail,

it drums on my burdened head. And I want

it to help me shed my skin and bury me but-

Would I be a whitened sepulchre? Faceless

with my nation’s baseless and graceless way

of torturing small children by turning them

back, rejecting their cries because we are

unwilling to open our arms and welcome

their haunted hurts and necessary needs.

——-

Still, she sits on her petty, priti throne

dishing out her orders that embarrass us,

to keep her figures tidy,  while in Europe

the sprawling camps of hungry evacuees

are greeted, warmed, fed by Europeans

not us. The guilt she should be feeling is

pushed into piles of likewise, party papers,

`and the British standard pretends to change 

but the shameful truth will ever distress me.

The Trumpet Call of Spring.

( or Hope Denied)

The saffron centred crocus shone against the dark earth,

petals gently unfolding inviting the invasion of light

and insects tending their pollen, enabling production

of tapestry in grass; and secretly new bulbs grow ready

to bring joy and luminescence to the troubled world.

———-

Floating on the breeze bees hover, seeking the sweet

peppery smell of defiant daffodils, with urgent spears 

they break open frozen soil and as buds burst, golden

flowers wave in the wind, bending, heralding the good 

news of heads heavy with the promise of fruitfulness.

—–

The weeping willow hangs its head, as if shamed, down

on the scattering of purple, white, yellow  and orange 

that look on the swaying slender branches with awe til

the tiny buds of fresh green begin the task of creation,

in a quickening garden, a sweet shadowed lovers bower. 

——

So soft, so gentle are the woodlands growing and where

green buds burst below carpets of blue and white, as the

campanula carpet battles for ground with the humble garlic,

and mother’s violets cover the banks, peeping at the sun

which is slowly dappled and darkened under the canopy.

——-

Small birds flit and fuss as they collect damp green moss,

and the woodpeckers knock out their staccato rhythm,

or cackle with laughter as they fly through the branches

that wave and greet the coming Spring, jubilantly they

clutch the new nests and cheer on the coupling hawks.

——–

Suddenly life looks good and growing would be better, 

and fulsomely lovely were it not for the bitter twist, of

wars and weather which wrest from the world the many

majestic splendours of its blossoming and blooming,

killing indiscriminately the proliferating gloriousness.

————-

So, rest in bower, beloved, and feel the swift rising of

the sap in the gloom of a grey winter’s dying throes,

feel the gratitude of the butterfly winged flight, holding

the heat of Spring’s happiness in your heart against-

the cold of the hungry engine of division and hatred.

The Murder of the Innocents.

Its shocking, the shifting sands of conflict;

as brutalised bodies are buried in shallow 

graves while the wolves of war bare their

teeth and and snap and snarl mercilessly.

—

It is like a cloud of insanity descends and

sense and rationale are sold as ransoms

for seeding the ground with blood. We

watch as if watching a murderous movies.

—-

Do we feel the loss, can we bear to weep,

and wail, for the gross injustice of this 

assault on the human rights of children

murdered by icy cold hearted leaders?

—

The child’s eyes are closed

                and her heart stops beating.

War showing again its yellowed 

face of cowardice and words

bandied around are lies and 

propaganda because they 

cannot 

face the truth 

that it is 

Murder of

the Innocents.