Abbaye de Beauport Bretagne

High arches of lost grandeur

Remain, unattached to roofs,

Empty of glass but enough:

Imagination fills the holes.

Medicinal plants grow with vigour

Through traces of cloister,

Wind sighs through leaves

Bringing sound to stones

Imbibed with deep tranquillity.

Our modern minds feel a peace

We seek. Were the monks at ease?

Did their faith, care of souls,

Husbanding the soil,

Give sufficient purpose?

Four wooden sheds edge the garden

Insignificant at first amongst

The quadrants of flowers, herbs

And wild grasses. They stand

With no symmetry or clear design:

Only as symbols of human needs.

One shows tools which tilled the earth

Another, a saint's shrine for wonder;

The door opens of the third to luxury,

Satin cushions, gold framed pictures

And a book left idly by: our desire

Made manifest for ease and beauty.

The final door remains shut

With only peep holes, to glimpse

Objects, shapes, forms, of secret

Thoughts, of darker possibilities. 

Palmyra

                                                                 
                                                                   Palmyra 2010

Palmyra August 2015

The barrels of explosives are laid.

Callous indifference to the destruction

About to take place marks the workers.

Boyish glee, jokes and hardly a qualm

As the match, flame and fuse unite

To unbuild the ancient temple.

A few days before, the eighty years

Of scholarship amassed in one man,

The lover, the guardian, the sage

Of Palmyra were erased

With the swipe of an axe. Beheaded.

 People have little worth,

A temple still less: a cluster of stones

Which used to be a city: so what?

For what effect were they hoping?

Fame? No. Page 44 in The Times

Is hardly that. Notoriety, perhaps.

That we care, that the old crossroads

Of trade was unique and loved

That is enough, to destroy.

The Temple of Baal was blown up on Aug 23^rd 2015

Khaled al_ Asaad was killed August 22nd 2015 at the Palmyra site

The Salema Shoal

Teddy bears' parachute jump

Tulip Light

Grape Hyacinth

Dover in the fog

Final week of Lent Challenge

Wednesday April 1st

Art lies in a box

Ignored - then

someone looks.....

Light

Purpose is restored.

Maundy Thursday Day

Nobility lost,

The old oak lies rotting,

Its fibres breaking down,

Bark and branches gone,

Its history in cross section

Exposed. A home and banquet

Now for insects, its new life

Is humbler but still relevant.

Maundy Thursday evening

I looked up and saw the angel,

Normally a faded blur in a small alcove,

 but

Vibrant tonight, shadows and light

Fused in making the ascetic

head seem fresh.

As if this ancient painted figure

Was given life while our

feet were washed

And blessed us in our uncertainty.

Good Friday

Caught in a hollow of the rocks

A stone is harried and pounded

Tide by tide. With no escape,

The hard walls of the niche

Are its prison. Pain, like the stone

Worries its way round and round,

A gyre of anguish, bent on repetition.

Nailed, mocked, betrayed,

Love trampled in the dust,

Jesus bore his pain, for us,

For a world which cares little,

But he offers the chance

that 'our  stone' could.....

        ....... find a way out.

Easter Saturday

The Day after the Crucifixion

Three empty crosses stand

Empty now, the agony is

Yesterday's memory. The sign

'King of Jews' lies abandoned

Half hidden in a muddle of rocks.

What does it all mean:

The testimony, miracles, promises,

Message of love one another, now?

Jesus is dead, his body is buried.

Our eyes will not meet his,

We will not hear him speak,

Touch him, Again.

It is a death, an end.

How we will miss him.

Two days after the Crucifixion

I was wrong, horribly wrong

My faith wavered and I doubted.

I went to the tomb this morning

And the stone was rolled aside -

Jesus had gone.

He told us to trust,

that he would rise again,

And I didn't see how it could be done.

All that he promised has come true,

It is not the end.

I don't know what will happen now,

Where to start to tell what we've seen

But my fragile faith has learnt a bit:

I have to trust more.

Lent Challenge Week 6

Wednesday March 25th

Quails eat spiders

Stopping killer webs

Saving butterflies...

Who drink!

Thursday March 26th

The 60s pulsed with

'Twisting and shouting'

Now it's used for keeping fit.

Friday March 27th

Making someone happy,

Kindness freely given,

Are roses without thorns.

Saturday March 28th

Time has us in thrall,

It plays us like an oboe

But often goes too fast.

Sunday March 29th

From a clear sky comes a storm,

A telephone is answered,

A pilot makes a fatal decision,

Jesus is kissed by Judas.

Tranquillity is shattered and

Our lives are twisted to fall

In a different pattern.

Faith gives us an anchor point.

Monday March 30th

Crossing the desert,

Sharing a camel

Would mean learning

Harmony.

Tuesday March 31^st

Last night wind waged war

Roaring its destruction

            And

Daffodils lie snapped.

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.