Month: February 2023

It is strange how the brown, burnished golden leaves of the beech tree,

cleave to the branches through wind and hail, rain and snow. Frost rimed

they stay rocking in the wind and clinging on until the new brown shoots,

green and burgeoning cover the autumnal branches with fresh life.

They are like the dying breath of bad news that stifles us with death,

each holding firm to our contracted agreement to grieve and weep

until, like the beech we find new strong sweet shoots growing through,

bringing us the hope of Spring and a future of summer green joy.

—

Ridged and crinkled those papery but tensile leaves will slowly fall,

and gradually nourish the life laden earth with their starchy larders,

creating a haven for seeds to swell and toil under the darkened earth,

and we will see the new plants that root and grow in the rotting riches,

tiny plants, ephemeral with flowers like jewels, feeding the foraging birds 

dandelions, thistles, forget-me-nots, sunny buttercups and tiny daisies.

Creative survival goes on around us; giving signs for us to hold tightly

to a future where evil and loss yield to the source of increasing hope. 

Shells line the shore, empty waiting to catch a child’s eye,

to be rearranged into shapes and swirls of imagination,

the click of the empty whelk homes amidst the chattering.

And the sheltering sand creeps into every gap it can find.

—

Laughter spills over to spread delight to the racing waters

that threaten the pearly patterns as they surge and swell.

Somewhere, the weeping cry of a seagull is drowned out

by a bawling baby belting out their needs into a rising tide.

—-

Soothing voices are lost in the hushing of gentling waves,

and the birds rise squabbling over a butty bite left behind,

As the ocean takes back its domain, sticky tired families

go home, sand filled. Carrying memories of fun and foam.

Are you a speck of light in the darkness?

A tiny candle flame down an endless tunnel? 

Warmth in a cold place?

A broken brick in a wall? 

A kind word in a disaster?

A touch when we are full of fear?

A foot step on a lonely road? 

A thought in my depression?

An anchor in the stormiest seas?

An arrow that points to ourselves?

——

There are times when I am so lost,

lost in my mind,

wandering slowly from thought to thought,

and in tears I think back and realise

you were there.

I heard your tears fall too,

and then solace,

a gentleness in the grief.

———

Was it a single word 

from a stranger that was really yours?

A whisper in a crowded room?

The silence in a noisy crowd? 

Starlight  in the desert?

A place of rest in our sleep?

Encouragement in my despair?

A single bird singing in the darkening dawn? 

————–

I hardly knew it but –

You held me when I fell down 

and reached out to me 

when I wanted to shrink away.

Thank you.

Tarnished shells of tragedy and sorrow,

burnt out buildings and long snout guns,

stand against the hideousness of violence

and the cult of war.

Children flung from cowering to funerals,

parents arms empty, people without homes,

empty plates and emptier eyes hollowed by pain,

and the cult of war.

Trampled plants and the trembling of animals,

creatures of the day and night,  dying in agony,

maggots alone have food in plenty through killing

and the cult of war.

Armed forces die, anti tank devices flame,

leadership,  safe int heir homes, order them on,

a Covid invasion, a created virus of human intent

for the cult of war.

Offshore accounts heartier, affluence hastening,

weapons manufacturing, wealth to make,

eyes blind to the savagery, the lives they take

for the cult of war. 

—-

Are you a speck of light in the darkness?

A tiny candle flame down an endless tunnel? 

Warmth in a cold place?

A broken brick in a wall? 

A kind word in a disaster?

A touch when we are full of fear?

A foot step on a lonely road? 

A thought in my depression?

An anchor in the stormiest seas?

An arrow that points to ourselves?

——

There are times when I am so lost,

lost in my mind,

wandering slowly from thought to thought,

and in tears I think back and realise

you were there.

I heard your tears fall too,

and then solace,

a gentleness in the grief.

———

Was it a single word 

from a stranger that was really yours?

A whisper in a crowded room?

The silence in a noisy crowd? 

Starlight  in the desert?

A place of rest in our sleep?

Encouragement in my despair?

A single bird singing in the darkening dawn? 

————–

I hardly knew it but –

You held me when I fell down 

and reached out to me 

when I wanted to shrink away.

———

Thank you.

There is a drawing I did as a child of clouds 

round and white,

and then I began to see their silent majesty.

—

Today, they’re greys and whites, tracked with

tractor tyres and old bones

softened with pastels and sheep’s wool.

—-

They make no sound as they trail across the sky,

quietly changing the heavens 

mirrored in the colours of the ocean and hillside lakes.

—

In the evening they dim the rainbow with crimson,

gold, orange, yellow with puce,

mixing and mingling, glowing with grace.

—-

Early, they catch the sun’s rays and waken the sleeping

with pretty pinks and hues, 

that brighten a weary world for a morning of peace.

—-

Clouds silent as angels of light float by.

Feathered birds flying over the seas,

Towering mountains. Roiling, night black on the horizon.

—-

Howling winds rage and they learn to race,

blackening the skies,

torn by sun bright lightening,  shaking the world with storms.

—-

Clouds bringing drizzling days, heavy and lowering, 

soaking the thirsty earth.

so many shapes and strange stories from afar.

—-

A snowflake is unique in its birthing,

as singular are clouds.

We change as we watch them for Grace is there.

Covid exhausts,

the government exhausts

the climate exhausts

where then is the grace?

---

We are not alone.

Everything has a cause.

We are like a sea tossed ship,

that has forgotten

there is land.