Lent Week 2

STORM 

Puddles full of peaks,
Towers, droplets, sprays: rain makes
Water dance with joy.

Seville: the Orange Harvest
Imagine a square
Full of trees, full of oranges
Like children's pictures.
Branches are shaken and down
Tumble the oranges thudding 
On the sandy earth creating a rain
Of orange, and an aroma of jam.
But there was no marmalade for breakfast.

Gifts
Birdsong in the darkness,
A cake on the doorstep,
An unexpected smile.
But God's love exceeds all.

Lent March 5th

Andalusia

Chattering of castanets,

a drumroll of heels on tiles,

fans, shawls, a fury of flounces,

outraged, distainful glances

and the flamenco erupts;

Worlds of bullfights and passion,

Lorca and blood are conjured.

Outside in peaceful order

grow lines of green olive trees.

Lent March 3rd

Alhambra Mirador (view)
Guitar rhythms strum,
crowds thrilled by the light
are awed in joint wonder
as the sun's final blaze
turns the pleasure fortress
grey, gold, amber, stone rich
then dull, then gone, then dark.

Lent March 2nd

 Early morning 
Hills, in ever lightening shades
Stretch to the far horizon 
As in a perspective lesson.
Mist erases foreground colour
In incremental stages,
Like losing the present 
in a cloud of the past.

Lent 2017 Week 1

Ash Wednesday March 1st
Córdoba: the Basilica Church of St Vicente lies at the foundations of the Mosque / Cathedral. When built it was used by both religions.

Look up, look beyond,
Muslim and Christian shared once,
The stones were God's House.

Poppit Sands

Time

Young water bounces down the hillside
Spraying over stones, racing downwards,
Joyously playing with gravity, 
Surging, spilling, tumbling, through, around, 
Over, between, anything in its path:
Exuberant in the adventure.

Later, in more tranquil peaceful times,
When gliding becomes the choice movement 
Such lively energy is forgotten.
The inexorable path to the sea 
Becomes the vague purpose now,
With expanding banks and lazy ooze
Taking the place of action. Deep pools
Hold basking fish, swimmers, dragon flies.

The river's slow, sometimes stagnant flow
Lacks power but provides passing beauty.
Light plays games and creates reflections,
Not those of old men but banks, flowers
Trees; nature seen in double vision
Repeating itself for a brief eternity.

A Particular Loss

When darkness comes our world shrinks,
If sight shapes our boundaries;
When the soul finds it is trapped
In winter, where Spring is just hope
Waiting is cold endurance.
There will be rebirth, faith will bring answers,
But idling, hoping, wondering, trying 
To be cheerful while a new way is found,
In the bleakness of emptiness,
In a place where security is no more,
Creates quick sands on the beach.

Early morning at Foxton Locks

Nature

Tawny amongst green

A fox scouts prey in the kale,

Above, buzzards watch.