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.

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.

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

Lent Challenge Week 2

Wednesday Feb 25th

Three Spitfire engines

Purred through the war thanks to Cath,

Don't knock the old!

Thursday Feb 26^th

Kites circle grey skies,

On damp, grey land, nothing stirs,

Sunset's a surprise.

Friday/ Saturday Feb 27^th 28^th

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.

Lent Challenge Week one

Wednesday Feb 18^th

St Albans

The market buzzes

Haggling and deals vie where once

Swords clashed in battle.

Thursday Feb 19th

Shrug, turn away, leave;

Is saying thank you so hard?

Frost instead of warmth.

Friday Feb 20th

Old routes, known buildings

Nostalgia has a hard edge

Struggle balances joy.

Sat Feb 21st

"Your phone's ringing"

Everything stops

Conversation,

Awareness, all,

It's demand must be met,

Sharing dissolves.

The ball and chain of today

Are phones not books.

Sun Feb 22nd

Snowdrop heads laid low

Flattened by ice particles,

They too await sun.

Monday Feb 23rd

Tourist or pilgrim?

Walk, trek, seek adventure and

Find soul peace perhaps.

Tuesday Feb 24^th

On Looking at a  British Library Treasure

The curls and slopes of handwriting

Are a fading, near lost, art form,

We write if necessary,

Type for preference. Letters are rare.

Jane Eyre, the original

In Charlotte’s neat hand is a wonder,

Words flowed and odd amendments

Were elegantly bracketed

Neatness counted in the only copy.

The creator and the created fuse

As we ponder the truth behind the hand,

A crossing out, a clue to when

Words did not capture intention.

Stained glass removal

Between

England lies as a smudged line

Squashed between sea and sky,

A thin graphite divide, parting

The mirroring grey of water and cloud.

Heritage, pomposity, human angst

Are temporarily erased,

Its 'might' reduced to being

a mean filling in a chunky sandwich.

Trees stud the hills opposite,

The Isle of Wight is defined,

Significant by its proximity

To our bobbing, windless, craft.

The tide drives us forward,

Decisions are held in balance,

Waiting and time suspended,

For the act of commitment,

A Clipper's wing - detail

Splash

Oct 1st 2014 Baghdad

The killers are close,

Circling and threatening

Beleaguered Baghdad.

Inside the city

The shadows are defied:

Beside the Tigris

Eager crowds gather

For a dog show,

Simple, everyday, normal.