Month: November 2022

A Moment in Time

I stood and stared, the road silent for once,

listening to the thumping beat of the waves 

on the harried shore, and the call of the wind

whispered in my ear of wet weather to come,

the rustle in the bushes of small birds startled

by jackdaws rough calling, charging passed.

—–

I stayed watching, and listening, hearing a song

burbling from the branches of a wintered tree,

then, chattering of human voices and the wren,

slipped swiftly through twisted, tethered branches,

leaving me to my awesome wonder – that a tiny 

feathered friend would share their lyrical call,

—–

with humans and the hurrying oblivious folk

travelling through the outstanding countryside,

populated by creatures, seen and unseen, 

working together with nature and singing their

tiny hearts out as the plastic, litter and tramp

of the feet of people talk to enjoy the view and 

——

for their troubles fail to hear the tiny wren,

or finches as they chatter and spread their

Gold and crimson, and charm those who 

choose to stay their journey, and silently

wait for the cheery cry of the chough calling

in the wind and the lament of the buzzard.

——

Turning I saw the dark clouds drifting across

the blue, green landscape and suddenly they

split and through the darkness spread the golden

rays of a setting sun.       And for a moment the 

glowing clouds cupped the molten gold like A

loving Chalice offering light in the 

deepening 

darkness.

Forest Bathing

Look up! Look up! and see the dull glimmer of stars

as light travels steadily for millions of our earth years,

to be swallowed up by the mirky polluted earth skies,

finally the mystery of their lives is visible to our eyes.

——–

Take time! Watch the golden, moon lit stratosphere,

or the pounding waves covered as if by molten gold,

or the golden leaves greyed as evening comes now

fairy flying leaves as the wind lashed branches flow.

—

Be, still, quietly watching and see the tree creeper,

dashing up the furrowed trunk or the butterfly

whose lacy wings are folded, feeding on nectar

and feel their goodness, peacefully fill your soul.

Brexit’s Legacy

Startled by swiftness of the grievous downturn,

he stood looking at his terraced house, once warm,

once welcoming and in his hands were bulging bags,

and his children playing their games on tech screens.

Weary from work he held the bag from the Foodbank,

and felt again the creaking of a body underfed and

——-

prayed the government would not abandon them.

——-

Entering the cold hall, no cooking smells to warm him,

his children already huddled in their coats and blankets,

watching their hour of the tele, all computers traded 

for cash to pay dark electricity for a moments necessity

and his wife gone to hospital  for a long awaited treatment

her beautiful body broken by the corruption of cancer.

——

Bubbling beans filled the damp smelling house with joy

as the children ran to collect clean plates and cutlery

tummies rumbling with juices racing to collect goodness,

and send it tumbling around their cold wasting bodies,

He set out their meals of bread and beans and craved

his own stomach shrunk by the steely, power grabbers. 

——–

Sitting together  in the dimness of street lamp lit room,

he held her frail hands in his own brick roughened,

and together they calculated what was left while

a smart metre tricked them  and became a liability,

she besought him to eat bread and beans to be able

to continue to have the means to avoid their liquidity.

COP27! What is Truth?

Somewhere a contaminated trickle runs through an arid landscape,

nearby are the bodies of the dying, graceful giraffes, or gilded lions,

letting their last breath and their bodies die into the brutal dry earth

as it turns to the dust of decisions and decide on coal over water.

——

Somewhere a thirsty man frantically digs through the burning earth.

his land is scorched and his animals dead, his larder is empty as is

his water bottle and nearby his small children, thinned by the greedy,

gobbling resources, making bad choices so that his children will die.

——-

Somewhere a sobbing family walk away from their salt soaked land,

as the ocean rises and all along the edge are caught the evil plastic 

that is poisoning all of our planet and even a mother’s tender milk,

while the leaders, salting their food, have thrown away fruitful soil.

——-

Somewhere a scientist knows how to clear the PVCs that clogs

the mouths and bodies of fish, and whales as they are snarled up

and choked, or cut, or sicken as their stomachs fill with our bags,

and as our oceans die so will we, little by little for a gallon of oil.

——

Somewhere a researcher has searched out a way to stop the cycle,

by capturing the carbon the air will cool, the weather less violent

but those, who like money over others safety, stick with their choice

of self-centred, self-absorbed resolutions which will self- destruct. 

——

Somewhere the leaders meet and pontificate about the urgency

and others declare that they have a new environment agency,

but behind their governmental doors they are washing their hands

in a horrible stink of pollution, of hidden oil and gas solutions.

Conspiracy to Harm

The coils of lies lie indifferently at the feet of the many who deny,

they turn everyone’s tragedy into a fearsome, wild conspiracy,

hunting paralysed, grieving victims of shocking, violent atrocities, 

hurting their pain with their own lazy brain that simply chooses.

—–

Sitting in a wheel chair a broken man sees his disabled daughter,

his tears for her losses and his own are true reflecting traumas,

yet someone says the police, the terrorist, medics are all lying,

and those who mop up the blood are untruthful in the telling.

——

They kill daily with their lies as their choice to coldly dissemble,

listeners believe, stop life giving vaccines or safer decisions,

losing their lives to a peculiar greed to alter facts no precision,

building for themselves people led like lambs to the slaughter.

——

There are times to boldly challenge the stories we are being told.

Scientifically searching the wisdom of the many and never the few,

seeking to think and listen to different voices intelligently asking, 

choosing for those hurting people with PTSD, care and kindness,

She felt like a tree stripped of its leaves and someone was girdling the trunk.

Her branches stretched out skeletal after the diet of journeying and fleeing,

they rattled against the bones of her children and the struggling child inside,

like nestlings hid in a trunk, as they chirp, quarrel and cry for mother’s food.

——

Like a willow she wilted as she stood in line with no water to sate her thirst,

or that of her children – who as thin saplings were buffeted by the wind of 

prejudice and officialdom- instead of being warmed by a caring welcome;

they bend and shed tears of fear and loneliness without their father, who

——-

has been weeded out, taken away, threatened within and without by men

and women who enjoy being controlling. They long to cut the whole of the

forest – tree by tree- leaving a trail of destruction that would have made the

mad fools, who tear down the life giving rainforest, seem sane in their ways.

——-

Many like her underfed, who bear hope in a  womb, sicken, whilst in orchards,

the gentle hope of the Spring blossoms bring ripe fruitfulness in harvests,

whence the gardener cares and weeds, waters and feeds until they hold

the abundance in their coarse hands, tasting the sweetness of their labours.

——

She will be buffeted by the gales of bias and decisions that break her chances,

and her wellness suffer in the punishment of poverty and overcrowdedness.

Her baby is lost to the pretence of ignorance of government, that takes power,

and uses it to condemn a people, who have endured for months, for freedom.

——

The trees of the forest, of the people of the land, look on sadly, confusedly

as they are no different except in belonging, and their long roots send out

messages that spread through the forest underground – giving, sustenance

to the roots recently yanked from their earth to now drying out in alien lands.

——

The weeping willows of immigration are hanging their heads and reaching

for the river of hope that is flowing past the gates of their imprisonment,

whilst some are removed and wander around the jungle of the midnight

city. condemned by a  rationed system that denies any need for compassion.