The night is dark now, the wind is sharp

And laden with so much water

The ground is sodden, no crisp winter night this

Looming darker even than the sky,

the great whale back of the church

Its windows lit, 

The side chapel burns brightest

A sound break out from it’s walls 

A northern sound, a brass band

I clearly hear the carol they are playing 

The words ring in my head

“Born that man no more may die:

Born to raise the son of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

Hark! the herald angels sing,

"Glory to the new-born King !"       

Suddenly the head drooping cold and damp,

the dark wetness is lifted :

The Christ child is coming

Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year     

Oh heck I get political

There has been a lot written about  Anti-Semitism in our society, especially  in the Labour Party.  I have been very concerned about this so I have done a lot of reading, texting and listening and I have come to conclusion that the vast majority of the claims about anti-Semitism in the party labour are more about Corbyn and the labour position on Palestine than anything else.

I do not doubt that there are anti-Jewish people in the labour party, and that there are those who use anti-Semitic rhetoric (sometimes unaware of the racial/religious charge of their words) though stupidity is no excuse as there is no place in public life for anti-Semitic, islamophobic, racist, homophobic, religionist hate speech of any kind.   To  pick on anyone because they are “other” is  morally wrong and stupid -  we are all different  but all share a common humanity

The Aniti-semitism problem has been compounded by those who conflate Judaism and Zionism.

Judaism means you hold a religious faith in the Jewish expression of God and the scriptures of the jewish peoples, or that you are person descended from that community and still identify with that community and its culture.

Zionism is the nationalist movement of the Jewish people that espouses the re-establishment of and support for a Jewish state in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Canaan, the Holy Land, or the region of Palestine).Modern Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, both in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and as a response to the Jewish Enlightenment  (Wikipedia)  Ie a political ideology.

I of the opinion that conflation this is not only lazy but also stupid and dangerous thinking, which unfortunately is apparently shared by the present Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis according to his own words in 2016. If he is not guilty of lazy thinking then he is guilty of  deliberately dangerous and  divisive  thinking in doing so.  Whilst he does not represent every Jew in the country -  only a little over  one third  - like the Archbishop of Canterbury, he is seen to speak on behalf of all.

To conflate a political philosophy with a religion or ethnic community is wholly wrong. It turns those who do not hold that political view into racists even if they hold the same faith or of the same ethnicity. So according to Mirvis not to be a Zionist means you aren’t a good Jew,  even discriminatory to your own community.  It is even worse for someone outside that community who does not agree with that political philosophy, they are are  seen as rabid racists when all they are is someone who disagrees politically with you.   It is basically insane.

Why insane ?  Because it actually demeans and weakens real hate speech against your community. The Jewish community has been the subject of appalling racism for century after century.   To equate that with a political disagreement  is blind stupidity, it allows real anti Semites to say they are non zionists and are being called out for that.   What Mirvis is trying to do, is to hide a still controversial idea in religion and there is nothing good that will come out of that.  

Whilst I personally believe the modern idea of Zionism, an idea whereby a Jewish person of any nationality have a “right to return” to Israel bizarre.  This almost seems to be a willing cooperation in a weird international ghettoization of a community,  which cannot be good for anyone, either those in the ghetto, or those deprived of the variety of culture in their societies. 

Whilst I can understand why after the long persecution, Jewish people want a safe place to live but i am far from convinced the present setup in Israel/Palestine is that safe or this ghetto is good for us all, including those who lived there before 1948.   Surely the ultimate safety lies in being part of an open pluralistic society that strives to rid itself of true hatred is the best place. To create false hysteria is counterproductive,  to identify faith with a political creed damages  both the believer and the politician

The next bit gets religious!

I am in no way unaware that there is a religious element to the “return” to land God gave to the Abraham and Moses. But it also clear to me that the gift was always dependent on a good relationship between the people and God and that included good governance and respect for people not of the faith who lived in the land.   And the Hebrew scriptures make it very clear that God can be worshipped away from this Promised Land.   I share with many Jews and many Muslims, a desire to walk the street of Jerusalem, to be in that place where God spoke to us weedy humans would be inspiring, but today it seems that all the richness of God is being squeezed out as much as it was in AD 70, or in the Babylonian captivity.

I would not want to walk the streets of a city at war with itself, torn apart by injustice, violence and rage.   That pain was caused by Zionism, that pain is made worse by a darker twisted Zionism that declares non-Jews to be less Israeli than Jews. 

That last sentence is the point of view that Mirvis describes as anti-Semitic.   I suspect that there are other people who would express their opposition more crudely and then there is a risk of getting into truly anti-Semitic language when people only think they are being anti Netanyahu. 

That is why Mirvis is wrong, either stupid or wicked to conflate faith and a political opinion because it releases the poison back into society and some good don’t even realise that they are doing it. Personally I think Mirvis is a lightweight and so lean heavily to the stupid interpretation.

30th November

The sun is out 

The sky is cloudless, the darkness has lifted 

there will be stars tonight :

rain a memory – all too recent a memory  

The land is sodden, every field a marsh, each stream a river 

The trees are now bare 

But in the winter light are richly coloured

The tops are green and bronze

The winter blue of the sky shows the filigree of the birch

Fingers reaching up

Here and there a pine tree – green and fresh

One there cut for the Christmas tree for the town.

A cloud of tumbling jackdaws, clear sharp outlines

Where the sun has not fallen, the hoar frost remains

Soft shapes against the soft wet dark earth

Those trees seems to be still green – but that’s the moss

My side of the valley is the cold side, the air sharp

but the leaves of the sage so soft to the touch

a fur of ice added to the natural softness

As the cars pile up in the road outside the school

Some trees and now some more have their brief

Time in the sun ended as the sun falls below the hill 

The valley is now dark, the high empty fields

Still cling onto the light for a few more minutes 

Now the pale blush of evening seems to reach from the high grasslands 

Peach and rose, slowly darkening deepening to pink and orange and red

The morning woke to grey mist which spread over the land

Advent starts on the morrow

Copyright

Hi
Just to say all the posts on here are copyright  (C)  Mark Ieuan Johnston
If you want to use any of the words or images for non commercial purposes you can but my copyright must be included and asserted.

For commercial use please contact me 

Buzzards!

Buzzards

A short collection

of

Words

By Mark Ieuan Johnston

November 6th

High above valley, a mew of a buzzard sounds

I wonder what she sees.

The silver ribbon of the canal

The trees now burning as the winter calls

The cold high tops,

Dark stone monuments above

Does she see the brilliant white and dark green

Of the drake goosander?

Does she see the three cormorants

Primitive shapes dark against the grey river?

Does she see the bright winged

Jay with its white rump?

Does she see the azure streak of the winter kingfisher?

She calls again and falls to the woodlands’

High trees in a search for a roost

Llanthony

High summer and the green lawns reach out

To green trees and green bracken covered hillsides

Till they touch the perfect blue dome of sky 

Unbreached by cloud or smoke or raging wind

Perfect stillness

Lifting the verdant earth to that blue sky are the last straight walls

Left of the monks church

The colours of nature fill the vacant windows

Daisies replace the tiles of the chancel

No vaulted ceiling was ever a glorious as the vault of heaven

We are not quite alone in this ancient place of prayer

But the other couple sit and rest, blessed by the sun 

Still quiet of the quire surrounds us and then the call of prayer

High above a star on heavens ceiling calls out

A wild mew of the buzzard calls all to pray, to give thanks for this moment

This perfect slice of light, this fragment of time.

  

Cyfan

We walked out that day from the white cottage at the edge of the town

Down along the river's edge  just above 

The tides highest reach 

Amongst the salt tolerant flowers

Till at last we found the path that lead along safer ground,  past the tumbled stones

Of an old house,  past the the grave 4000 years old, 

Along the edge now of the sea

Down into small bays filled with shells

Jumping over streams that drain the rich farmland

Onto another cove, where the  sea kale grows in abundance

To a wide bay, showing the flat rocks leading down to the sea

The tide was low, the waves distant

And in the midst of the bay a green island ringed by a grey wall

A perch for the little white church, which Cyfan made, 

We turned up the lane and walked back towards
The village, once a royal court of Gwynedd

Up through the green fields and stone walls, 
The lanes curved and danced almost like at a summer ball

Then we saw her – wild and fierce eyes - watching us 

Only a child, her hooked beak, her yellow talons, pale feathers,

The young buzzard wondering what we were.

Mere Country 

I set off one morning in my teens to walk back home

I started by the mere in Knutsford and walked up

Past the three meres in the great park of Tatton

Past Rostherne’s distant mere

And on into the edges of the urban jungle that

Is Manchester, and there, tired from the miles I caught the bus then back home

All around there are meres, no lakes , no ponds  just meres

Some are hidden, enclosed by those who build great houses on their edges

Some are play grounds

Some are for the birds

They are all around in this part of England

Rivers like the Dane, the Bollin and even the Mersey weave and run around  
And  both  feed and are fed  by these meres

Cattle drink by the edges

Legends grow along the reed filled edges

There the Black lake – Llyn ddu- now just a mere on Lindow Moss

But once it was an altar to the gods who received the bodies of men

Ddu indeed

Now and again I find myself back by those meres

The reeds are failing but there is bird feeding platform and a thousand gulls 

The black moss is a SSSI

The lapwings have gone 

But the Buzzards have returned, every tree seems to have one watching you

Seasons turn and again and the world changes 

The Mountain Road

There are many mountain roads in Wales

Mountains abound and so to the high lonely roads that go

Between forgotten places

Roads over commons

Through long abandoned mine buildings

The mountain road near Bargoed is crossed by sheep and

The Mountain ponies, memories of childhood  

They were there when we scattered the ashes of the old man

That was the day I saw Barcud Coch over that road,

A road above the faded broken valley communities

A road through Cwm Ystwyth passed older mines than those in the valleys

Here they sought out lead, not black anthracite,

Past the great dams providing water for the English midlands.

I remember that day when the ridge line was marshalled

By all the buzzards of Wales it seemed

Each one 50 metres apart floating on the sharp wind driving up the edge

The mountain road that passes behind and out of the walled city,

With its castle by the sea.  Its high view of the island framed by the

Heather clad headlands, the long slow descent down and down till we are Level with the sea, a moment on the bridge, 

And we are on that Island, that holy place

  

Buzzards

A bird of grace, strangely thrilling to see

Because it has again become so common

So different from one to another, such a variable plumage

The tourist eagle, so often mistaken for the real thing

They bring a touch of wild to any day

But is still the familiar bird in the tree,

On a telegraph pole

Once a common sight, the apex predator

For the voles and the rabbits

Then DDT and their eggs shell grew so thin

They could not contain the life within

Years passed and slowly the poison leached out

Of the land

Eggs grew strong, birds from the mountains drifted

Down to the farms and fields

Now they were seen as friends,

Preying on rodents that devour the crops

Perched on the tree by the side of the field

Nesting in the little wood in the curve of the river

Lanes and hedgerows where I roamed as a child,

This wild bird is now a common sight.

Where once it was never seen, 

Now they are daily companions

  

This is a small collection of nature

Poetry in which the wonderful

Buzzard features heavily

 

  

Harvest 3

October, time of harvest festivals

Time of the dying sun

Leaves fall, blood of summer

Spilled by the cold and dark

Crops unripened now will fade

But

The barns are full

The green tomatoes will be chutney

The apples are ripe

The crops are gathered in

Winter will come, 

the trees will be bare 

Black twigs will line the sky

The apples will keep

The wheat will make bread

The barley will make beer

Autumn will pass the riches of summer

To the winters hunger

The world will turn

We will eat

Darkness will grow

But light will come again

Hope will return

The Christ mass will mark the beginning of the end of darkness

The day

The day comes to a close,

The shadows lengthen,

The colour slowly gently leaches from the sky

The man sits quiet, on the bench

He sits quiet, night coloured hair.

He looks up, sees the bat flying by

He looks alert, watches it intently

The sky darkens.

Dark midnight colour slowly covers the sky

In the west light fails

The man stands, stretches and enters his sand coloured house

Light spills out across the road and vanishes as the door shuts

Night has come

Elegy for the Britons

A light of winter in the sky 

A taste of metal in the wind

A hunger a cold devouring of light

A people adrift lost

A long drift, drags across the shore

A broken ship’s bones break the sullen wave

A lost dream is for a moment seen

A torn heart falls to the sea foam

A promise torn from a book of lies

A picture of the wise fool flutters

A banner proclaiming false hope

A tired breeze shakes through the litter

A darkness fills the heart of

A people who once saw 

A broken person as

A chance to help

A lie here, a sad whisper and all they see

A burden, a competitor

A foreigner, a different dreamer

A thing not a brother or sister in need

Where the word of hope, 

Where the prophet of joy,  

Where the lord of men

Where the teacher of truth, 

Where the priest of love

Where the carrier of light,  

Where the healer of pain

Where the restorer of the broken

There are some holy places

What makes a holy place ?

Is it a church  or or a mosque ?

Is it an ancient tomb of our far distant ancestors?

Is it a special wild place - a sacred grove or quiet cove

There is one place that has all this

I know an island,  rich in farmland,

but where the bones of the earth  show through.

Here and there are the stones raised up

This for a reason we don't know,

These are a burial chamber for an ancient community

These for the great King

These make a village from when Claudius was emperor

These make a church  made by Padrig

and these one for Tyslio

and these make a Ty Ddu

These fold and twist to make beds for the seals

these washed smooth by the sea trap the waters of the lagoon

These old and strange, still hidden,

supports love's island,   these make the lighthouse.

Here the stone is crushed and washed  into a sandy cove,

Here the great shifting sands are trapped beneath Marram and Pine

and somehow hold rich lakes

Here the risen stones  enclose the holy spring

and the monks church

Here the still resting  rock make the cliffs for

Bran Coesgoch to dance over in summer and shelter

on the greensward for winter

Here the stones were ripped from the

earth, torn, broken. destroyed, burnt  for the metal, the colour of my nieces hair

other colours still stain the great pit  and the dead ponds still squarely

lie at the foot of the hill

This is a Holy place, this is a sacred home,

a place that gives sustenance to many

a place that hold magic spaces

a place that shelters its people

a place that ordinary lives are lived in

Summer

Soft languorous heat builds,

Each breath of the day seems hotter

Each tender touch of the air brings a momentary

Illusion of respite

The green valley seethes in the sun

And still stays green

Water runs still in the many little rills and becks

The air carries so much still

Even the birds fly slowly 

Silence grows over the valley

I look for the lizards on the baking stones

But it was too cold yesterday and will be tomorrow

Pale shadows drift over the hay stripped meadows

When the true clouds come

Will they rage with all this water?

All this heat, will the sky crack open  ?

Shall we dance in the rain?

Shall the coolness return ?

Shall the stone crack ?

Shall the sky turn black ?

Will the slugs and snails dance? 

Will the birds hide ?

Will deer run under the trees?

Will the water run off the ducks backs?

A red admiral drifts as high as my window

Celebrating the warmth

Joyous as the clouds grow

In the blue sky

The heat remained

Easter 2017

The White Tree

In a broken land a tree stood white and barren against the light 

clean and sinuous the dead branches curved through the sky

Graceful elegant dead

Left untouched by all around no nest of any bird to disturb its simplicity.

Clean unhurt by life only the rain casts an occasional grey cloak over the bole of the tree

Graceful dead elegant

No hole of woodpecker no visible sign of decay the white tree changes not with season

winter summer still it stands unmoving in the wind that tears down living trees nearby.

Dead graceful elegant

Dead is the tree dead are its children no seed sprouted under those boughs

dead is the man nailed to that white tree dead is the heart of his mother.

Dead twisted broken

He is taken down,  his blood stains the white tree,  soaking into the dead wood.

The man is taken to a tomb cut from the rock, a stone covers the entrance.

Dead, stained, hurt

The storm rages,  the rain falls, the stain on the tree unwashed,  night passes, day passes, night,

women come to the tomb,  the stone is not blocking it,  the body of the man is gone

Dead, fear, confusion

A crying woman, a man walks from behind the tree, she looks and cries for joy

she runs to find friends,  the man touches the tree, and is gone

Dead? What! How?

The sun falls on the tree, and leaves open to welcome the light,  its graceful shape confused

The foliage scatters the light hiding its elegant form, birds alight on it’s once pristine branches

Living, life-giving, hopefilled.

Mark Ieuan Johnston,  Easter 2017 

For Dad

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen: thy salvation,

Which thou hast prepared: before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

A study -  a wall of books

A broken chair

What is left?

Photos on an order of service, a wedding here, another there, with children,  with friends 

the same face

old, young,  broken, smiling in life.  Under all a date of ending

a church packed out.

A notice in the local paper, a few paragraphs in the newsletter.  

A harsh bitter illness that lingered on for 15 years all the days he lived in this house,

Slowly all the liveliness and hope squeezed from him.

The final days - the anguished  “I don’t want to get better”

Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?

The care pathway changed   

Less and less he woke, till one morning 

removing all that was left to remind him of his weakness ,

he took a tissue from me, so he could wipe his own face

he sang along to the old welsh hymns and songs, a voice reduced to a breath.

He told the nurse he was in pain again

again morphine took to him to sleep, never to wake

Now I am eldest, no wise head to talk to, to ridicule, to love

No one to ring on a Sunday night

No hug at the end of that awful drive

81 summers and winters had come and gone since that November day

Children and grandchildren,

Grief and joy, hope and despair

Triumphs and disappointments

What remains ?

Some dust,  memories , and a hope

Now at this birth season of decease,

Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,

Grant Israel’s consolation

To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

He was heard.

The Nunc Dimittis ,  The Seven last Words from the Cross and TS Elliots Song for Simeon all provided help in putting this together 

In the beginning

The Christian and Jewish scriptures start with the words – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” before the writer goes to describe how he thought God did it and for 4500 year ago I don’t think he did a bad job.

The creation is now revealed after 4,500 years of thought and tests to be even more amazing and immense than the genesis writer could have imagined.  At the beginning of time a singularity exploded and within a few moments all that is, was made.   In the unimaginable violence of the beginning of space and time, matter and antimatter were created in there most fundamental states collided into each other and annihilated themselves eventually a bit more matter was made and became the building blocks of all we see (and perhaps the dark matter we don’t). 

 It took time for the universe to cool enough for protons and electrons  to for hydrogen,  and then  it took even longer for the hydrogen atoms to clump together eventually to form stars,  and it was in the massive  starts  that the other elements were forged, carbo, oxygen, gold. 

These early stars were massive and unstable and took to blowing up scattering their contents all over the universe,  more stars formed  in their wreckage  and eventually enough stuff was made to  build rocking planets and asteroids   and eventually even Sol and her planets came into being and on at least one of them a carbon based life cycle began and evolved until standing on the edge of a tiny rock, spinning round  a small bright star, on the edge of a smallish galaxy  of millions of starts in an infinite  universe of galaxies,  a life form emerged and asked who am I, why am I,  how am I.

That life form had evolved from other creatures but was somehow different – somehow developed art and then in its current form – language and then writing so ideas could be shared and communicated between groups and generations, and then we could post selfies.

In all this, the human species had somewhere in their make up had a God hole - a curiosity that could not be sated and they wrote books about God ,  they wrote books about the world, about maths, about their emotions and they made music. 

A very different picture to the one in genesis, but it is the one that right now I think is right

None of this means I believe in science, because that is a meaningless statement,  the curiosity  of  humans  comes from the God hole  in us, we want to know everything – about the world, about the universe, about God,  each generation learns more, each generation stands on the shoulders of  giants and sees more.  

There are some humans who are afraid of the new, not ready to see the wonders of the creation and lacking knowledge  of  the way things are made, they turn away and  curse the new  and reject the God  but call themselves worshipers, denying the real wonder of the maker, because they don’t understand and they want not to think.  

There are others who see only the physical, the tactile and they raise new gods, themselves, crowing on their own dunghills.   Some of these little gods are kind, others cruel and isolated, but they all see only their own words as true.

Some rejoice in all the new, for in revealing the new of how God did things reveals how wonderful the God is, how amazing the world he gave us is.  These worshippers of the maker seek to discover more about the maker, about the made world, about the made humans. They live in a world of change, of life, of hope, they will go gentle into the next adventure, because they will know that there is so much more to know.  These are the true creationists.