Category: Uncategorized

There doesn’t need to be a Why

~

Here the kite

And the buzzard cry

~

And woodpeckers swoop

And dragonflies roam

~

And all is green

Except for the sky

~

So infinitely blue

And there is you

~

It feels like home

Where there doesn’t

~

Need to be

A why.

~

from The Lawley, looking towards The Wrekin

So Much Greenness!

Nature surrounds us with so many wonderful colours, but especially with greens!

I wrote this poem after being struck by greens everywhere and all around me on my Shropshire walk today…

.

It felt as if I had never seen

So much greenness

.

As if the spiritual force

Of life itself were green

.

As if there had never been

Another shade

.

To paint

The pathway plants

.

As if every blade

Of grass

.

For green

Did dance.

.

The Lawley, with Church Stretton and The Long Mynd in the background

Enchanted Places

Some places feel “enchanted”. The ancient Celts talked about “thin places” where they sensed something divine.

The Long Mynd in Shropshire is one such place for me. In the morning there is a special kind of silence there, broken only by the occasional chirping of birds, the bleating of sheep and the whinnying of wild ponies.

~

The earth is still enchanted

By these worlds we have not planted

~

Wild moor

And hill

~

The silence of these places

Has power to move me still.

~

Out of the Darkness

The Wrekin looms out of the darkness on a Shropshire morning in March 2021. I drive past this iconic hill Monday to Friday every week, and sometimes it just speaks of life, for good, to me, as it did on this day…

~

Out of the darkness

It looms

~

The curving back

Of a dragon

~

Slumbering

Deep within the earth

~

As if long before

I was

~

Or any were

There was a primordial birth

~

Murmuring

Before rock

~

Took shape  

And girth.

~

Moment of Hope

~

The light comes in the morning

          like a new creation

~

As the darkness divides

          and we see all that is good

~

All living things

          have their moment of hope

                      reaching high into heaven

~

And we like them

          feel the green shoots

~

Bursting within

          budding into new blooms of light.

~

In the Silence

When you climb a hill, you sometimes experience a special kind of silence.

‘The Lawley’ is one of the Shropshire Hills – seen on the top right-hand side of the photograph taken from The Long Mynd, also featuring ‘The Wrekin’ top centre left.

As you get higher in your climb, the views become more and more stunning, and the silence deeper and deeper.

It can feel like “a new kind of silence”.

This poem was my attempt to that experience one day:

~

There’s a new kind of silence

On the Lawley this morning

~

A kind of inner silence

On the Lawley this morning

~

As if a new kind

Of consciousness

~

Was slowly

Dawning

~

That has suffered

And died

~

And has risen

Again

~

Here on the Lawley

This morning.