"Bob, track some mud on the carpet"
Words from Johnny Cash to Bob Dylan, a nudge to take risks and leave a mark.
“You are the light of the world…let your light shine before others.”  Matthew 5.14. Words from someone who knew how to leave a mark. We can do the same.

I
Have you left some mud on the carpet?
When did you last leave a stain?
Do your words make an impression?
Will you risk sounding insane?
How will you best be remembered?
How soft are you tempted to tread?
How long will your footsteps echo,
in the years after you’re dead?
Why do you think you were here?
Why do you have breath within you?
Why do you have all these questions,
when there're answers that've always been true?

II
Created to be the creators.
Gifted to speak others' minds.
Your art is a voice unspoken.
A light to open their eyes.
So next time you walk in a room,
look for the ones in the crowd.
Those who show recognition
of the things you don’t dare say out loud.
These are your tribe and your family.
These are the ones you can trust.
Together you might find a way
to help new life form from the mud.

If there is a God, he whispered 'garlic bread' to Peter Kay
and 'Yellow' into the ear of a younger Coldplay.  
He gave Picasso a brand new angle
and told Isosceles the deep secrets of the triangle.  
He opened the eyes of a struggling Van Gogh
and calmed Will Tell Jnr. in the face of his father's levelled bow.
God's whisper and touch are as present now as ever,
just heed the prompts of our ever-present creator.

I sit in my Edward Hopper moment, my half started keepacup of green tea cooling,  staring at the chess board floor while my mind slows, moving down the gears after A1-driven shenanigans and I mindfully let the beat of Magic Radio fade back into the 70s while some seldom used lobe recalls a blue wide-wheeled mini van (replete with an A-Team overthetop stripe) on other journeys North.

I close my eyes and focus on the duties and joys of single granddad-hood and try to ignore the give in the one-size-barely-fits-all plastic seating beneath my oversized frame. My eyes refocus and I'm struck by a three-gen family arguing over Burger Kings, and I hate their voices forcing me back to 1984,  RAF Scampton, forcing down a much-too-early, much-too-bleak breakfast ahead of a slow day taking stick from families of maddened miners.

I close my eyes again to breathe my regrets back into place, and I sup and look ahead.

Beauty lies beneath.
Wait for it to emerge.
New shoots, rich earth.

Part the foliage.
Give them more light.
A chance to fight.

Simply crouch.
Dip your head.
See beneath.

Beauty lies beneath
the bleak.

I recognise her hurled hurt
- pain
- frustration
- weariness
- can't wait to get out of this
in each unspoken sigh
each practiced cry
each queued curt response
that lay swallowed
and composed in the pit
of a fully evacuated stomach

frayed but full to four edges
marginalised annotations leaving nothing unsaid
over the bleeding watermark shouting its insistence:

nothing is ever finished only paused pending further
inspiration from yet unheard whispers from beyond
the perimeters of an ensnared inner page of rage

Brave to ask.

   Wise to listen.

      Inspired to act.

         Transformation.