Saturday 21 March 2015

Lent Challenge Week 5


Wednesday March 18th
Plants tucked into soil
Feed our hopes for growth, bees, moths,
Beauty in the wings.

Thursday March19th
Consider blossom
It brings light to dark places
How can we do that?

Friday March 20th

Loss
Sometimes the mind plays tricks,
Anniversaries slip away
Almost unheeded, then
As if to make up time
Loss swoops in
Shattering sturdy barricades.
Babies who should have been,
Should now be grown with lives
Being lived, part of their own
And our, families:
Identities, characters,
loved and cherished
But weren't able to gain life,
Lost in the word, 'miscarriage'.
'What might have been.....'
sterile thoughts, but they
peep out sometimes.
Love which didn't happen
Was channelled elsewhere.
Loss has been aired today
Looked at, valued, but even so
I think I'll rebuild the barricade.

Saturday March 21st
Londonderry
One God, two beliefs:
Division
But old foes burn their past
To begin friendship.
                                                                                                                        
Sunday March 22nd Monday March 23rd
Richard 111rd's re-burial.
 
Bones betray our past:
Curvature of the spine
Sword cuts, axe swipes,
Richard's mortal blow perhaps.
All tell their tale to those
Who can read the clues.
Once a man, a king, whose skull
Once held memories of the deeds
We debate so hard now.
Grey-friars Priory held his bones
But walls fell, stones 'borrowed',
Monks dispersed, graves were lost,
Til a car park hid all
Plantagenet traces.
 
Crowds stand in awed hush as
The bier moves through modern streets,
White roses arc to rest beside
His coffin on his last ceremonial journey.
The University give him to the Church
The Church blesses his soul and
God's gift, if given, will bring him peace.
Death in 1485 is honoured now.
As witnesses our sense of time
Flickers between realities,
His discovered bones
in their curve of death
Makes the past a present
But his truth remains obscured.
 
Tuesday March 24th
Deadly silken threads
Woven round leaves lure their prey
With evil beauty.
 

Wednesday 18 March 2015

Lent Challenge Week 4


Wednesday March 11th
A butterfly moves,
Eyes and hearts
lift in wonder
beyond the funeral.

Thursday March 12th
Syria
Four years of war,
Sides unclear, reasons muddled
Purpose lost in rubble.

Friday March 13th
Working together
For each other and their queen
Leaf cutter ants thrive.

Saturday March 14th

Across centuries
A Chinese horse laughs
We smile too - a mood is caught.

Sunday March 15th
I woke up listening:
The plaintive cries of lambs,
Sounding like desperate babies
muddled my responses;
the deep notes of the cuckoo
Sounded after breakfast,
Distant but the first of Spring.
Wind blustered around our walking
With accompanying birdsong
Indecipherable but lyrical
Except for squawking pheasants;
A natural soundscape,
Shattered by a gunshot.

Monday March 16th
Gradations of grey
Swallow up views
Like brain murk
Which hides a choice name.

Tuesday March 17th

Slowly, with great care
The stained glass is slotted back

Christ replaces trees.

Wednesday 11 March 2015

Lent Challenge Week 3

Glass at Baddesley Clinton 


Wednesday March 4th
A rich, weathered wall,
Wrinkles,
Patina,
Snowdrops drooping,
Time plays randomly!

Thursday March 5th
Simple pencil lines
Shape a child's head,
They make quiet sadness real.

Friday March 6th

As bees seek nectar,
Primroses smile in the sun,
Hope is in the air.

Saturday March 7th

Fundamental words:
'The English Church shall be free'
Magna Carta now.

Sunday March 8th Monday March 9th
A brief blaze of sun
Outlines the Malvern Hills:
A flash of the past flicks in....
Tramping the ancient paths
Over the skyline heights,
Gazing down, along, outwards,
God's hills, bedrock of our land:
 Then
The snapshot of sun-flare goes
The spotlight has been switched off,
Black clouds assert themselves
Drizzle and fog in tow
The intense moment’s gone.

Tuesday March 10th
Stealthily, a shape
Moves in the darkness,
A badger and I fix eyes.

Elgar looking at Hereford Cathedral

Wednesday 4 March 2015

Lent Challenge Week 2


Wednesday Feb 25th
Three Spitfire engines
Purred through the war thanks to Cath,
Don't knock the old!

Thursday Feb 26th
Kites circle grey skies,
On damp, grey land, nothing stirs,
Sunset's a surprise.

Friday/ Saturday Feb 27th 28th

Betrayed again,
Greedy MPs accept
Money for introductions;
Squandering trust,
Entrenching cynicism
Bruising the electorate
Again.
In Russia bullets
Eliminate opposition,
Ravening greed to keep power,
Gorging on the 'me' ideology.
There is another way:
'Neighbour’ could replace 'I'.

Sunday March 1st
Gurgles of laughter,
Loved faces, minds in accord:
Treasured spots of time.

Monday March 2nd
Bounding hares, munching
Leeks, wearing daffodils, give
March its imagery!

Tuesday March 3rd

Slowly the boa shrugs off
Its old skin like sins
Which have been forgiven.