for my Sidcot Friends
Two poems on Encouragement
I
She rose to her feet,
and sitting a few rows behind
I could not see her tears
as they coloured every word she spoke.
‘I have been thinking,’ she said,
‘of my dear sister dead
this fortnight past.
Loved by all whose lives
she touched, home and abroad.’
With some courage this woman
then described the memorial service,
the church alive and packed to honour
her sister’s life, a life of encouragement
always given with the kindest words,
and her wonderful smile, always.
II
His delivery was achingly slow
every word measured right
on the cusp between sense
and no sense, but ******* the memory.
Fitting somehow because his subject
was the movie ‘The King’s Speech’,
how he and friends had focused
during their Lenten study
on Bertie, the stammering monarch,
discouraged and made fun of
at every turn.
But,
befriended by a commoner
this future king was encouraged
to know that he might speak one day,
words of hope, of resolution, of courage;
encouragement no less - in a difficult time.
(to be read with aching slowness . . .)
At Meeting
‘For each and all
we need silence and stillness.’
So she had written . . .
and we were certainly
silent. Still is a harder
state when sitting
on those wooden forms,
benches well-bottomed
and the floor at our feet
creaking like planks
on a ship’s deck
in a stiff breeze.
Presence in the Midst
I hope for His presence.
It comforts me to know
He had been here before,
sitting close by, waiting.
But, lately, I am removed
from the Promise and the Gift,
and not fully awake, the silence
droops my shoulders,
bends my back so the daughter
of my friend (and partner)
wonders, ‘Is he asleep?’
No, I say when confronted
later. Not I.
Resting perhaps, and
just relieved from the sentry-go
of imagination’s so
persistent commands.
Heels Together
In spring sunshine
on a wooden bench
by the circular pond
I sit to listen
to water’s spray
and play from
the diver’s fountain.
Here a pair of sculptured feet,
body and limbs immersed,
and into the lilies disappeared.
But with the heels so neatly together:
to make a smaller splash.
Seven Hills
I’m surrounded here
by the Seven Hills –
Callow, Blackdown, Dolebury Warren,
Sandford, Banwell, Crook Peak
and Wavering Down and up
again and back to Callow.
These carboniferous limestone heights,
Mendips all, are home to the peregrine falcon,
geranium purpuleum, the long-eared owl,
and *dianthus gratianopoltanus.
Sunset
Sitting alone,
with only the sunset
for company,
I watch an orange globe
fall, fall behind a distant
hill hiding the Severn and the sea,
a spring evening and the birds
in song before the approaching dark,
the rising moon, the solitary stars.
Four Yurts in a Field
‘Speaking truth to power,’
The Guardian said,
‘Questioning authority,
Challenging the status quo’
and so . . .
Four yurts in a field
make for a centre of
simplicity, truth, peace
and equanimity all
quite inescapable here.
Singing Easter Sunday
We sang as we do here
on Easter Day this joyful
noise together all and sundry
to bless the day with music’s
Concord and Time, rhythm
enlivened by the Sweetest Charity,
flipping the wings, tingling the feet.
When every empty bar did give me leave
I caught her singing smile, her sensible
shoe-standing stance, her grace,
her peerless beauty in that grey
frock falling just to stockinged knees.
She was all and more and ever
I could wish her ever to be. Amen.
An Easter Settlement is the name given to a Quaker gathering over the days of Easter Thursday to Easter Monday. It's a time for families, food, fellowship and fun. Quakers don't actually celebrate Easter but they nonetheless recognise its spiritual importance and see it as an opportunity for reflection and friendship.
