Autumn 2024

 Gold refined from a damp summer begins to show in the leaves

Echoing the gentle October sunshine 

Leaves fall to the still waters of the canal

Slowly drifting downstream 

A young heron sits on an old pipe in the river

Looking out here and again for a fish

The bright shining yew berry lies untouched on the dark earth

Black and yellow a male blackbird’s call a warning

Blue and purple shine of the crows wings

A buzzard dodges ravens over the wood 

The leaves hide the calling of the little birds

A wren darts into the base of a tree

The fluffy long tails dodge in and out of the fading leaves

Shimmering water in the sun are the last dances of the pond skaters

The tears of God

A holy place was built on the high hill
Here the Holy One had His presence
Here was the most sacred place on all the earth
Here the holy man was enraged by the defiled space
Here He taught about the Kingdom of God 
Here the soldiers ran and stained the stone with blood, 
Here the stones were torn down 
Here it was barren, stones over a recovering city
Here in an amazing night another prophet visted
Here it become the holy ground
Here a great dome of gold was built
Here the children of the one God began to squabble 
Here they called each other names and threw stones
He was hung from a tree, stretched in pain 
God wept

His children were scattered 
His children kept fighting 
His children fought and killed each other
His children blamed each other for their own mistakes
His children began to slaughter each other 
He was gassed and burnt- hanging in the air in a soundless scream 
God wept 

His children gathered in the holy place
Here they would find peace together 
Here they would build a new and just society
Here they created a new catastrophe
Here they created new wars 
Here they created new injustices 
Here His children found more ways to hurt each other. 
Here they learnt to make the weapons of hellfire 
Here they learnt how to hate, how to be cruel
Here they learnt to lie  
Here they bound each other into ghettos 
Here they unleashed death, killing children
He looked up into the unsmiling face of the gunman, on the missile aimed at His home
God Wept  

God weeps for his children, 
for our inability to love, 
for the way we only teach hate
for our fear
Good weeps 

Our planet burns.

 Each year there are catastrophic wildfires in the Eastern Mediterranean, in Australia, in the UK over the last few years.

We have seen cyclones and hurricanes stronger than our memories, the sea level is rising, the glaciers are shrinking.  Wildlife is moving north and south as the polar regions warm, some of the wildlife will have nowhere to go, the polar bear may disappear.

The deserts grow and the people of the Sahel lose their lands and their freedom.

 Our government and opposition suddenly, see the votes of a posh London suburb turn on anti-pollution measures because the voters don’t understand or care and instead of speaking truth, politicians trip over each other in trying to seem car friendly, suddenly allowing more fossil fuel (1) exploitation.  Instead of a struggle for truth and justice, a race instead to placate the foolish and the selfish. 

The cry of the high-minded freedom activists (the rich tories) “It interferes with freedom of motorists”.  I ask, “are they free to drive drunk, to race through the streets, to kill”, we all know the answer is no, so nor should they be free to poison the air we breathe

Those who seek to protest are going to to be criminalised because they inconvenience the comfortable, the wildfires interfered with their holiday, heaven help that they are delayed on their commute 

It’s time to call out the lies, the darkness, let us speak truth to each other, let us hold each other in our prayers, lets us become a people again.   We are fragmented communities without connection, without trust in each other, the first action of authorities is to deny instead of speaking truth, to apologise for mistakes.  So let us together make a pact to speak truth, to pray for each other, to smile at each other, to be kind to one another, maybe then people will begin to trust other 

(1) Infosys, owned by the Prime Minister’s father in law signed a billion  dollar deal with  BP  two months before Sunak opened  hundreds  of  new  licenses for gas and Oil extraction from the north sea  ( London economic  )  Infosys  list Shell amongst their  clients  ,  incidentally  the Shell  CEO  joined  Sunak’s new “business  council” two weeks ago 

Rain

The earth exhales, 
we breathe in the rich intoxication 
of its wonder
rain is falling onto parched ground
days of battle, seeking shade 
are ended, the earth opens its old hands 
in joy  
as it drinks its fill.
The warm rain that fills the plants with hope
their buds open,  
the bees swarm to fresh nectar  
on this the longest day,
rain sets the world free
to grow, to bloom 
to set seed 
to hatch
to fledge
to emerge into a new world 

Elegy for the frightened

The time is now 
The place is where you are
The hope is real, it’s for all of us
The love is strong, stronger than we can ever know
The passion is true, clear and meant

Awaken the sleeping joy, hidden no more  
awake my heart to love 
awake my sleeping soul
The sun is high in the sky, the light is strong 
The earth is green, the flowers burst 

Reach out and welcome 
Your family 
Your friends 
Your broken neighbours
The lost and the alone

Don’t be afraid, you are strong
Don’t run away, you know how 
Don’t lock the doors, what are you keeping hidden
Don’t hide from love, you know you can’t
Don’t be beaten by fear, what do you desire?

Awake 
Stop sleeping 
see the light of your eyes
feel the warmth of your love
reach out in waves 
 
Set the bar high
And be proud to try
Don’t cry if you fall
Stand up, be loved  
Never give in 

Let fear fall from you, as a winter cloak 
Let your heart be strong
Raise your head and look the world in the eye 
How can you be afraid now 
He has risen from death      

Awake

 

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.   It is sometimes thought it could never happen again, it was  the act  of a few hardline dedicated madmen.  Sadly it was not, when the SS  followed  the Army in the conquest of Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and  Lithuania,  in  over a few months well over 250,000 jews were  dead.  This was not done by a few dedicated SS brutes but by many local groups who enthusiastically followed the SS lead.   This is still to be acknowledged by those countries. To acknowledge the evil that was done is the beginning stopping it happening again. 

It is also important to see the steps that lead to Holocaust and to be able to recognise them in the world today. Modi in India  is slowly but surely demonising the Indian muslims.  Israel becoming even more extreme in the treatment of its Arab population.  The UK in the appalling treatment of the Windrush generation and its demonising of asylum seekers.

All it needs is the silence of good people to allow the little things to pass and the bigger things become easier and soon you are looking into the abyss of the war in Ukraine.  Here like the rise of the Nazi state, little truths and big lies are slowly mixed into false narratives of how we stand strong against the evils of degenerate values. 

The shared values between Hitlers Germany and Putin’s Russia (and Trump’s America) include anti-gay, anti-semitic, anti-liberal values with a return to a mythic homeland and nosensical Christian Nationalist narrative  - A holy Germany , holy mother Russia, MAGA   Then suddenly it seems easy in the deluded  mind to do the unthinkable,   to invade Ukraine,  to kill millions  of people because they were  Roma, gay, disabled,  Jewish,  to  seek to to over throw democracy in the name of democracy   

The only defence aginst  this darkness, is to keep loving, to keep caring,  to hurt  and accept vulnerability.  Do not to keep silent, when you attract rage against “being woke”, be happy, you are hurting them.  Woke is aterm we must welcome, how can it be wrong to be awake.  How can it be right to sleepwalk into the many hells we humans have built in our past?

A Silent Day

As that great solemn procession 
Passed between the mourning crowds
I saw the birds fly over silent streets
Collecting the autumns bounty

Perhaps they were pleased at the lack of traffic,
They were undisturbed by that beat of drum 
Metronomic at 75 times a minute.
Undeterred by the field guns bursts

The colour of the slowly moving people
Must catch their eye, but none spotted the spider
On the wreath of flowers. 
No magpie looked at the shiny diamonds

So many different processions
The last is down a country lane 
No crowds, just the birds, the grass,
And still same drum, the same beat 

And past fallen flowers, smiling dogs and silent pony 
The final destination is reached
A chapel as great as any cathedral
There is the last resting place 

Now in the quiet, away from eyes of bird
Away from worlds eyes, a mother, grandmother
A father, grandfather, both laid in earth
Rest they in Peace and Rise in Glory, our brother and sister