The prompt for today is ‘anticipation’
We await the day
When our certain hope becomes
A promise fulfilled
Our preparations
Build as we look to the day
of celebration
Anticipation
Fuels our frantic busyness
As the time draws close.
Frustrated we pray
Will we ever be ready
For the coming peace
Often I will have inspiration for just a few lines of a poem. I’ll write them down and come back to them at a later date to write the whole thing. A while ago I wrote the first Stanza of this, originally about a very different matter. However when I came back to it the poem has gone in a totally different direction. So here, very different to what I intended, is the finished poem.
The first time I said no I meant it
The second I wasn’t so sure
The third time I said no I knew that
I’d bend if you asked me once more
The first time I said yes I waivered
The second I felt that I must
The third time I knew I had no choice
To say no would lose me your trust
The first time I walked out I tested
The second I still wasn’t sure
The third time I walked out I knew that
I’d never walk back through that door
The first time I felt love he meant it
The second he meant it much more
The third time 1 felt love I knew that
I’d always be scared and unsure
The first time he promised I questioned
The second I silently wept
The third time he promised I knew that
Once more and 1 might just accept
The next time he promised he held me
In earnest looked straight in my eyes
Whatever wherever whenever
He’d always be right by my side
And that time I really believed it
For once more my heart was made whole
With him by my side I have risen
And reclaimed the me that you stole
There is an aching in my soul
A longing at the depth of my foundation
I am lost in a mire of inaction
For I do not know what to do
But I will not give up
I will not admit defeat and
surrender into inevitability
No, I will cling to the tiny thread of hope
that abides beside me.
How I wish it were a mighty rope.
Self righteous assemble and all take their place
Tilt heads and down long noses sneer at my face
As I play my part in their glorious disgrace
Self righteous assemble forgetting their climb
Scrambling up bodies o’er shoulders like mine
Their arrogance prohibits waiting in line
Self righteous assemble and spread far their lies
Others not like me were less in their eyes –
They told me against all I held dear they’d rise
Self righteous assemble to look again down
Along their stiff noses to where others drown
And worried their heads over who wore their crown
Self righteous assemble so keen to condemn
Those who would broadcast the truth about them
The outpour of difficult facts keen to stem.
So if you would stay off this slippery slope
And strike the deceit of misinforming tropes
Come take your place in discomfort and hope
Everyone needs at least one true friend who can always speak the truth to them, good or bad. Who can tell them they’re making a mistake, either by doing something they shouldn’t or not doing something they really should. Of course it is entirely up to us whether we actually listen to our true friends! The “them” in this poem are definitely not friends!
They told me once to try again, I asked Them why I should I liked what I had done this time, They said it was not good I asked Them what was wrong with it I loved it done my way But this was met with tutting and yet They wouldn’t say So I refused to try again, proud of my first attempt It came from a true, honest place - I questioned Their intent But They would not accept my choice, They would not let it lie They wailed and cried and pestered me to have another try. Yet I feared if I gave in, that if I let Them win A lifetime of enslavement and servitude would begin For once they had the best of me would They then let it go? Or tighten hence their grip on me? I really didn’t know But something told me to beware, to not let Them dictate Even the least of my designs I should myself create. So I stood firm, dug in my heels, They turned away from me No more acknowledging my work, pretending not to see. And I, no more so self assured began to wonder now Was the beauty in mine eye real or feigned somehow As I began to doubt myself a true friend came along And questioned why my tongue was stilled, he no more heard my song. I am no good I told him, my confidence curtailed. But he would speak the truth to me - my ego did avail And so I paid Them no more heed, I ceased to play along I showed the world what I had done, once more sang my own song Now free once more to be myself, to plan and to create I rose above Their tired attacks their nebulous dictates And stronger now I found the wings I’d never known before And from that true friends confidence up to the stars I soar
Is it just me or does life seem to have gotten SO busy. There seems to be an endless flow of distractions and intrusions that hinder me. Recently I have been reading a book called The ruthless elimination of hurry. (Ok, I confess; listening to – I’m far too busy to sit down with a book!) The book itself is an easy read, but it asks some challenging questions about our modern lifestyle. Written by John Mark Comer, an American pastor, it is written very much from a Christian perspective but there is lots in it to speak to anyone living their life in our crazy, busy, noisy, nonstop, often overwhelming world. The chapter I read (listened to) this week is all about silence and solitude, something that few of us get enough of! After discussing it in our small group I was inspired to write this poem.
In the silence
In the stillness
Of the quiet place
I will seek you
Come towards you
Turn to me your face
I am ready
To hear from you
Speak your truth to me
I will listen
To hear from you
Words so Fatherly
In the silence
In the stillness
Of the quiet place
I will meet you
Be at peace there
Rest in your embrace
When my children were small I had a notebook in which I would write down some of the cute things that they said. For example, the time my son asked “why do you have beard on your arms daddy?” or the time my daughter rolled her eyes back as far as she could and exclaimed in disappointment “I just can’t see my eyebrows!”. But as well as being entertaining some of the things they said were actually quite insightful and poignant. When someone recently shared a video of kids being asked what it meant to be kind, some of the answers were really quite profound. It got me thinking about how as we get older we sometimes make things unnecessarily complicated when to children they seem straightforward. Children see the world through very different eyes to adults. As adults we have been shaped and damaged by life experiences and although these are unique for each of us, we all have something of cynicism, prejudice and pain in the lens through which we view things. Children often speak with a refreshing honesty too, saying things we would be too embarrassed to say, and seeing straight to the heart of a situation when we may have to peel back layers of assumption and expectation to reach the same point. Maybe listening to what children have to say sometimes, can help remind us of what is really important.
I listened to a child today
She spoke with a wisdom that belied her years
And gifted me her insight.
I listened to a child today
She spoke with the reasoning of innocence
And opened my jaded eyes
I listened to a child today
She spoke with a compassion that shamed me
But filled me with such bright hope
I listened to a child today
She spoke of such wondrous possibilities
And made me pause and ponder
I listened to a child today
She showed me everything I could become
And gave me desire to fly
I am a dreamer. I dream often and regularly remember bits, if not all, of the fantastical tales and crazy adventures I have during slumber. The weird and wonderful worlds I inhabit whilst sleeping can be a rich source of inspiration for my writing whilst awake, and I keep a note book beside my bed to jot down anything I want to hold on to. Sometimes when I look back at them my night-time scribblings make no sense at all, but once in a while when I check my notebook I am amazed at the insight or poeticism I find there.
A few days ago I had an unusual dream, even for me. Instead of being in the dream, playing ny part, I was an observer. And as the scene played out before me it wasn’t live action it was a black and white cartoon, all rough drawn and jiggling. I can only remember a very small part of it but it was such a striking visual images that it inspired a poem.
I can see myself in the corner
In a small stark patch of light
All couched and folded inwards
In a world of black and white
The darkness that surrounds me
Is slowly pressing in
The fear of it constricts my chest
I feel it chill my skin
But flickering, and glorious
A white light comes to shine
And rages ‘gainst the darkness
In this corner small of mine
So sensing something easing
I dare to lift my head
And see the light expanding
And catch a glimpse of red
I can see me in the corner
In a growing patch of light
All couched, but less uncertain
In a world of colours bright.
Inspired by a ‘ thought for the day’ that was shared at The Arches project last week, this just kind of flowed out in response.
The injustice in the corner
Is ever so small
I turn my back, don’t see it
Ignoring your call
The injustice in the corner
I do not wish to see
Though slowly growing larger
Does not yet bother me
The injustice in the corner
Is no longer small and faint
I have to now acknowledge it
To hear your complaint
The injustice in the room now
So clearly in my view
Can still be ignored if I
Close my eyes and ears to you
The injustice I must see now
I’ll stand and rail against
But words are feeble weapons
And my strikes make no offence
The injustice right before me
I try to reason away
But all that I’m achieving
Is a break, a slight delay
The injustice in my face now
Continues hour by hour
So I must wrestle with it
And try to staunch it’s power
It may seem overwhelming
But yet I’m not alone
The seeds of revolution
Have already been sown
And so we come together
Injustice to oppose
Our common purpose strengthens us
And hope for justice grows
Today’s prompt was to write a poem in a single sentence begining” She told me”
She told me once about an amazing day,
when the sun had shone down
from the bluest of clear skies
upon a child of undetermined age
while she skipped gleefully through the field,
wiggling her fingers through the waist length grass
that was dappled with the reds and yellows of wildflowers
and hummed with the frenetic activity of
creatures she could not yet name,
but which fascinated her curious eyes,
hungry eyes that drank in every drop of the
idyllic scene,
before he found her
and roughly grabbing her arm
dragged her back to her
cold, grey-skyed reality.
Life, as I understand it 