Rainbow

Suddenly in the sky of rushing clouds

Grey and white in some strange dance,  

sometimes they part for a moment

and then there is patch of blue so transcendent.

Then a rainbow spans the sky

It fades there and brightens here, never the same,  

fluid colours flowing over the heavens arch

The very light itself cracked apart into 

This frail river of every colour and shade in the universe 

Reaching over our autumn valley 

Blessing those who travel 

Those who sit and marvel  

A promise of hope, of fellowship  

High on Lewes is a circle of stone

High on Lewes is a circle of stone,
Giants dancing and turned to rock
On the ridgeway, an ancient tomb,
Wayland smithy - Mythic metal worker
Overlooking a motorway, Trefignath
Three tombs changing as faith changed
St Tsylio’s tiny church under
The shadow of Telford’s bridge  
 
Places that were and are holy to us,
Can God be found in Bryn Celli Ddu
As well as Seriol’s well?
Can the divine be discerned in
Bhudda’s face, the calligraphy of a mosque?
Is it to be found beneath an ancient wood
Or in the stones of Durham cathedral?

High above the raging sea - a church half buried
A chancel decorated with Islamic tiles
Does God rage about Patrick’s church?
Do the heavens roar at the sheel-na-gig at Kilpeck?
Does he cry when a mosque is made in the old church,
Or when  the synagogue is rebuilt by gentiles? 
 
Now I believe in God revealed in Jesus, 
I preach Christ risen from the dead.
But why should I want to destroy 
To de-story our world by denying
Any holy place, the places where we,
For a moment can see the face of God,
hear his heart beating alongside ours  
 
The holy places are the liminal places,
Where the veil is thin, a place where earth 
and heaven can touch in the dance of life.
In each generation we find new places, but need the old,
Every place of touching, or we lose the chance to learn
From the very heart of God

September sunshine

This September for a moment is as bright as this April
skies are blue, the sun is shining, the trees are still green  
but now the green is an old green of leaves aged by a summer of rainy days
and there and here, a hint of summers colour shows instead of green. 
The rowan berry’s are turned red, the hawthorn’s too 
As we walk the paths - rich ripe blackberries call us to pluck them 
The perfect sky is empty of the swifts, a few young swallows gather on the telephone wires
Waiting for that moment to set off.
Peacocks and Red admirals flutter at my window?
After a silence, the Robins begin to sing again, carving out new territories.
This equinox is day of Indian summer, a vagrant warmth in the Sun    

   
The last shavings of the grass fields for winter feed has left the tops looking a patchwork
The lapwings and curlews have left those high fields now 
Now the meadow pipits and stonechat hunt the last of the insects
There is an elegiac feel to these last few days of summer light,  
a time when the mist hangs in the valley in the morning and the spiders
hang in their jewelled traps,  diamonds  hang  in the air 
An elegy for a world we once knew, a world where we had control 
now we face a winter of challenge finally aware that we are partners 
in the common destiny of our planet not the master.

Northumberland

 

Silver Sand beneath my feet, held by grey Marram grass
Blue Hare Bells, purple clovers and yellow daisies
in two great crests of dunes as you approach the sea 
The sand is gilded by the seawater,  
A broad ribbon of gold that leads from the southern harbour
to the northern bays
Here and there low black rocks, full of pools 
Slippery with bladder wrack, cut the golden sand like runes
Above me rises the great Castle of Bamburgh,  
far to the south the cracked teeth of Dustanborough
to the north the castle of Lindisfarne
and a half mile  south is a broken eggshell of a pillbox 
A precious land to be so fortified 
Now the defences ring to the sound of the sea birds 
Swirling high the terns screech 
The gulls call the wildness from the harebell blue sky
Out on the wild sea a white star of a gannet, 
the roman nosed Eider, cuddys ducks, bounce in the surf 
hurtling over the sand so light of foot till she turns, 
our Kaya, one of many happy dogs running 
where Oswald and Aidan walked, 
where Norse raiders drew up their boats
Now a place of peace, gentle colours rest the eye
Silver, gold, warm stones, a blue of blue in the sky,  
The rich warm colours of the Turnstone,  
the wintry shades of the early Sanderlings
This is worth defending, this is worth keeping

Gift

I am being given a gift sitting here on the rock,
The falling tide here at Cemlyn is gifting such joy
Just offshore is Craig yr Iwrch
Here the grey seals haul out, haul is too energetic a word
Simply find a ledge and wait to the tide to do the work, slowly
There will be twenty or thirty seals, grey bananas on the black rock
By the time the tide turns again
It the end of summer and the terns are getting ready to disperse,
But just now, just at this moment the tide streams are carrying a host of little fish
And the Morwennol are diving and shrieking between me and the Craig
Sea Swallow, the welsh call, the graceful and raucous terns that crash in the sea
and return with a sand eel perhaps for the adult chicks resting on the rocks round the headland
As the tide falls the Cormorants set off for their fishing grounds  
Almost as if chips of the black Craig yr Iwrch take wing
Here are the dinosaurs
The day moves on and slowly it seems the reverse happens and I
become more attached to my rocky seat, but I still catch the call of an oyster catcher
The flickering movement of the rock that is a ringed plover
The small flock of redshank that flit across the sea
I am home again at last, the wind carries a softness, my broken spirit begins to heal.

exam results

 

Why are we still getting it so wrong??

“pass rates for pupils in the most deprived data zones were reduced by 15.2%, in comparison with 6.9% for pupils from the most affluent backgrounds.”  (BBC)

 So after teachers did their best to estimate a pupils performance in their exams, the exam board did a statistical excercise but not a fair one.  They reduced the teacher estimates by a greater level in poor areas by twice as much as the did for pupils in rich areas.

When was this?  - NOW in 2020 - seriously still??

When in the name of God are we going to stop treating people so badly because they are poor!!

We have a massive change needed in society.  People of Colour are discriminated against, The poor are (and often BAME are poor as well), women are.  It is built into the structures of our society.  We have to change it!

 Two stories from different religions -   Jesus  talked about how much greater was the offering  of the poor widow than the bigger donations  of the richer,  As Islamic sage  arriving in Delhi  went straight in his travel stained clothes to the big feast and was placed well down in the queue  - seeing his he popped  home  had a wash and brush up and put his posh coat on and went back to his pace in the queue  - immediately he was picked out  as and escorted to a top table – when he got their he rubbed  his food over his posh coat  -  when asked why  - - he replied  "the coat got me fed  - it deserves its portion".  Every religious  faith  has stories like these  - that  challenge us  to change our values  - to change the way we think – to respect people regardless of  race, gender wealth as equals  and every  society ignores the teaching of their faiths.  (sadly, the organised religious communities are also very good are ignoring this part of their respective faiths)

 

Enough is Enough - we must change - why do we need true faith  -  because it can change the world for the better -  true faith is not going to wat with others, true faith is  not building barriers , true faith is not hypocrisy, true faith is building a better society.     It is time for  a holy war against injustice but not a war of hate, instead  a Jihad of Love , a struggle to change and create a holy society not based on doctrine  but on equality of worth, equality of hope, of education, of health care – a just and fair world 

 

Summer

 

I entered the wood by the gate from the old field
It stood quiet in the still warm air
The sun finally broke through in the heavy air outside
But light did not reach the floor here, 
A gatekeeper shuffled her wings though and took to the air into the field sun on her wings again
I went deeper into the soft warm damp wild wood
Passing the outer ring of holly , hawthorn, rowan and elder – into the high centre to where
the columns of the ancient beech trees reached gratefully to the sky.
My feet stirred an earth of ancient leaves and rotting mast
The great grey trunks lifted a green cathedral vault high over my head
Here and there a pillar of oak joined in keeping the roof above me  
In the vast space of this holy place I was alone
Save for the dryad spirits of the trees themselves 
Here light flickered through the leaves, here was light in the heart of the wood
Light enough to give hope:  green and silver:
Not enough to let the faded gold carpet be disturbed by other trees
When the vaults above turned gold, this would be the place
Of the hidden ones – as the reds, purples and deadly pale yellows 
Of the mushrooms broke though the floor as the world turned
But for now
It is the high time, of long days, gentle rains, golden sun, the time of plenty
Now the wood dances with joy.  In the corner of my eye, could it be the dryad’s dance too?
Now the time to rest, to rebuild our tired spirits in this holy wood’s high centre

Ffwrnais

Ffwrnais
Fire consumes, soon these broken remnants of humans will be ash,
No sign of the poison will remain in these pathetic frames
No tattoo will be readable, no similarity to be noticed in the bones
Only the question will hang in the choking air: where is God?

Creu
Broken are the stones, shattered are the hopes
There was the force of love, mother to daughter, father to son
Creations hope in the spark of joy in a lover’s eye
Crushed from the heart, despair: where is God?

Gwydr
A cold light hangs there now, rubble where they tried to hide
The vision of their hate. The suitcases of the dead remain
The shoes, the spectacles, the pictures
A clear light – a cold light of reality: where is God?

Gwir
There in the dead shadow of the long cold crematoria
Hangs a being in pain, tortured beyond sound,
Silent, grief carved onto his form, never at peace, not where his children
Were taken, not where his people slain but there is God.

Awen
God hangs in my heart, holding me quiet in my hurt
God hangs in my mind, speaking his words of love
God hangs over my soul, lifting it to hope that never,
Never will anyone ask the darkness: Where is God?

 These words have many inspirations but two  in particular I have  leant on most:   Gwyneth Lewis: The welsh poet wrote these words for the Millennium Centre in Caerdydd, Creu Gwir fel Gwydr o Ffwrnais Awen   'Creating truth like glass from inspiration's furnace”  which gave me the headings. Above all in his memoir of his time in Auschwitz: Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death, Otto Dov Kulka describes a dream of God – which I have clumsily represented under Gwir: truth 

Dreamscape

It seemed, I saw a sea, turquoise

below an azure sky, a few white clouds 

waves rushed on to the silver strand

from which rose a green land of woods and fields

My footsteps led from the water’s edge

To where I stood.  The sea birds wheeled

Above, the wilderness in the voices

Ahead the sand rose gently though the marram grass

The path grew green and the grass

brushed the sand from my feet

birch trees gave way to oak and beech

as I wandered inland heeding a distant call

I passed through the wildwood, the path

Turned along the borders of a stone walled field

The crop was wheat, golden feathered in this

Day of highest summer, the stones lay ahead

A great capstone marked with lichens, held up

from the earth by a broken ring of boulders

and stooping very low I could enter the ancient tomb

and lie on the clean damp earth as once before

  

Inspired by memories of Lligwy, Sir Fon

July2020 

Black Lives Matter ( This is a long one )

All Lives Matter  :   

All sane and decent people think that.   The problem has been that in some parts of our common life that has not been true.   The lives of sex workers in Bradford didn’t matter until Peter Sutcliffe started to attack other women.  The wellbeing of girls in care in Rochdale didn’t matter because they were asking for it.  The life of a young man killed at a bus stop because he was black didn’t matter because he was just a black kid.  All the victims of Saville didn’t matter because he was a star.  It didn’t matter that men like Weinstein exploited their position to sexually abuse women.

So not all lives mattered to us, not all lives matter now.  BUT every life matters to God. 

You may argue that this is the past  and we are better now – No :  not with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon  ( hiding under the name Tommy Robinson) leading his hate filled cadre onto our streets; not with people shouting abuse at people of colour in the streets today; not when we still celebrate the philanthropy of slave traders and owners with statues in our streets.   Not when all our school history lessons are the Tudors and the second world war and nothing about a national heritage shared by all of us.

When you learned about the Romans did you learn about the African settlement near Hadrians wall, did you learn about the slave trade?  Have you learnt about the great African monuments outside Egypt – about great stone buildings made when Edward the 1^st was building his castles to subjugate the welsh.  When you learnt about Florence Nightingale do you also learn about Mary Seacole?

Oh we have a long way to go till All Lives Matter.   

Black Lives Matter because all lives matter, but my life is not at risk because I am white, because I live in my own house, because I have a job, because I am a man.     So now as we have begun to face the demons of Saville, Weinstein  and their ilk, we know turn to a greater challenge :   to face the demon of fear because of the different people,  a demon that sometimes lives in our own hearts.

The sad thing about the demon of racism is that we have made it ourselves.  It is not innate in us, it is not in our children, it is a learnt behaviour from us adults.    And whilst the romans were quite ready to enslave anyone and kill each other for fun and entertainment - they did not discriminate because of colour.  

So where does it come from?  I believe it was taught us and then we managed to keep teaching ourselves   As one looks through history of the white peoples particularly the northern Europeans ,  we see  a slow but inevitable  movement  away from tolerance to fear and subjugation of people of colour.    A possible explanation is in appendix 1.

When I grew up in Zimbabwe, I was told that Great Zimbabwe and the other great stone monuments were built by the Phoenicians.  The idea that these great building had been constructed by the shona kingdoms between 1250-1700 was not one they could cope with.   It ran totally counter to the colonial narrative of a savage ignorant childlike people that we had duty to overthrow.   

The height of the British learning racism was during the Victorian colonial expansions where this salvation narrative was the prevalent one and is still present in many white people living in Africa today. 

The American racism was different I think -  there it came from fear  - there were so many (ex) slaves around  and “if they got proper rights then we would be overthrown – so we got to keep them down”   and they created a whole narrative of fear and mistrust punctuated with random lynchings and violence, a separation of cultures and even dividing the Christian communities into black and white in a way that taught the Boers in South Africa how to do it.

As American culture seeped into ours so did the white fear of blacks enter with it. And we taught our children to fear too.

My upbringing was different, as I have already mentioned I grew up in Zimbabwe (when it was Rhodesia) when Ian smith was attempting his own Apartheid.  I did not grow up in a white township but on a black mission school,  I had black and white friends,  and there were black and white teachers at the school,  I grew up respecting the black minister as much as the white minister.    I failed to learn fear of black people, but I failed to grow up colour blind.  Returning to this country  living amongst the white liberals  - I felt that to be a failing but now I know to be colour blind  is actually to be callous, because if I have a colleague who is black, to ignore his black identity is to attempt to wipe it out,  to ignore his story of challenge, it is in effect  racist to deny black people their identity, unconscious racism even amongst the anti racist.

So it is down to us to change ourselves, to resist the stupid fear of black people,  to reject the stereotypes not for our sakes only but for our children and grandchildren  -  which why today we must support black lives matter (BLM)

BLM is about acknowledging that racism exists - to acknowledge the prejudice in the police force exists and all too often that is racist prejudice.  When Sentamu (lately Archbishop of York) was Bishop of Stepney he was stopped and searched – no white bishop would ever have had that experience.

BLM is about acknowledging just how much of our wealth as a nation derives from slavery, the Lascelles of Harewood House are beginning to do that, beginning to reflect on the sources that built their wonderful house. BLM is about not saying on a tearoom menu saying have sweet – the family here at Penrhyn had sugar plantations so its ok to have a cake (I actually saw this on a national trust menu 10 years ago). 

BLM is about acknowledging the wrong done  to our brothers and sisters of the windrush generation and getting angry how slow the Home office is moving to compensate those people they illegally stopped from working or deprived of health care or  even deported!

BLM is about expecting the same justice I expect for my black colleague or friend.

BLM is about the same opportunity in life for my mixed-race great nieces as for my white great nieces

BLM is about justice for all of us, opportunity for all of us, a fair and peaceful society for all of us.  As we unpack the injustices done to black and other ethnic minorities, we will discover the injustices to others – to women, to the poor, to the powerless in society.   It will even reveal the injustices done to the thugs who support the EDF and how they have been told to blame anyone but their masters.

BLM is about freedom for all of us – free from fear, free from injustice, free from poverty – free to love, free to be who you are, free to build a better world

* * * * * * * * * * *

Appendix 1

People of colour are less seen after the roman period, so they become objects of mystery and curiosity when they do appear, but they are not considered as less worthy.  Then comes the Islamic Christian conflict in the Levant and  Spain  but it is the “moor”’s religion and  not colour that is the  challenge and even then there can be respect and trust between people of different colour and religion,  even as late as Shakespeare we can see a “moor” as a great lord undone by the petty minded scheming of a jealous  servant in Othello. 

As the Europeans expanded out of the continent in search of wealth, we begin to see the “just reason” rather than riches appear – we are civilising these foreign lands ,  bringing them to Christ.  This idea hardens over time. For instance, in India where East India company was trading many of their agents and bosses adopted Indian culture and respected the customs of the people.  Over time these nabobs were looked down on by the company bosses and  slowly the companies agents and residents were chosen because they were resistant to or even dismissive of the Indian culture. 

The real change starts when the process of making wealth is not just taking the resources from the land but also making wealth by the labour of these people.

Slavery was a common institution in saxon times in this country and Europe, it was common in the Islamic world too so there already was a trade in slaves about in the world  and  the British soon realised there was a good market for the labour of slaves  in the Americas and the Caribbean.  

So began the infamous triangular trade, where on the middle passage thousands of Africans were transported from their homelands to work as slave on the sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations.   Cargo losses on this middle passage were significant, rarely less than 10%  ( ie 10% of the humans enslaved died and were thrown overboard without ceremony into the cold Atlantic  - sometimes many more).     The enslavement was not just of men but women and children too and the women were often raped.    This became easier to do and justify when you started to explain that these people weren’t really human like you - they were just objects. 

Then when  you realised that you and the staff may well be outnumbered  4,5,10,20  to one by the slaves  on a plantation you could get afraid  and violence  to “contain” the  threat became normal.   This was especially true in the American colonies.  The attitude began to spread  until it became endemic.   

What killed slavery in that form was the rejection of this dehumanising attitude,  the famous  Wedgewood medal that was made depicting a black slave with the words “Am I not a man and a brother?” had its effect .  Whilst the British slave trade ended in 1807 and slavery abolished in the 1830s,  t continued in the US  till the civil war and for couple years later  I think 1847  on June 19^th (Juneteenth)  was when the last slaves were freed.

Then came the period of colonisation, the times of Rhodes and Raffles making immense wealth out of exploiting the resources of other people’s land and this was explained as civilising Africa  or Singapore or  wherever  - stealing the very excuse  that the king of Spain used in his conquest of the Americas back in the 1500s.    It was not just the British but most of Europe squabbling over the wealth of Africa, the Chinese  are still doing it ( more subtly but doing it they are).   

The quaint Belgians turned out to be perhaps the worst of bad bunch of colonial powers in the Congo,  we like to think we were the best.  As we invented  Concentration camps during the Boer war  and used them in Kenya  in 1948 and beyond,   it was a very bad bunch indeed.

One fruit of that colonial experience was apartheid South Africa - legislated Racism!   Odd how we didn’t want to stop the sports tours  from there – we weren’t racist but happy to prop up  the most clearly codified racist state in the world?    

Where were the churches  in this? Sadly, they are found culpable with a few exceptions.   The mealy-mouthed acceptance even embracing of  slavery by the clergy is awful.  When Granvile Sharp died after a life of care and compassion for his fellow humans - his support of Christian outreach the vicar of his parish refused a funeral sermon because Sharp had supported a non-conformist British and Foreign Bible society.  
BUT there were people like Sharp, like Wilberforce , like John Newton  (an ex slaver turned Christian minister and abolitionist and writer of amazing grace).  

It was said that the the leaders of the RAJ in India wanted the Magnificat dropped or altered in evening prayer  - they didn’t like the line  “He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek” far too Radical!

Celtic evening prayer

An act of  Worship  drawing on the Celtic tradition

Bold type  indicates we all join in ,  plain text is said by a worship leader. 

+ indicates that you may make the sign of the cross. This has two leader voices

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The approach

One thing I have asked of the Lord,

this is what I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life;

to behold the beauty of the Lord

and to seek Him in His temple.

Leader 1: Who is it that you seek?

We seek the Lord our God.

Leader 2: Do you seek Him with all your heart?

Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Leader 3: Do you seek Him with all your soul?

Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Leader 1: Do you seek Him with all your mind?

Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Leader 2: Do you seek Him with all your strength?

Amen. Christ, have mercy.

Leader 3: To whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life,

and we have believed and have come to know

that You are the Holy One of God.

Leader 1: Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ,

King of endless glory.

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ,

King of endless glory.

A time of thinking about God and his word and his world.

Response

Leader 1: God of healing,

God of wholeness,

we bring our brokenness,

our sinfulness,

our fears

and despair,

and lay them at your feet.

Leader 2: God of healing,

God of wholeness,

we hold out hearts and hands,

minds and souls

to feel your touch,

and know the peace

that only you can bring.

Leader 3: God of healing,

God of wholeness,

this precious moment

in your presence and power

grant us faith and confidence

that here broken lives

are made whole

Our Belief

Leader 1: We believe

in God above us, maker and sustainer of all life, of sun and moon, of water and earth, of male and female.

Leader 2: We believe

in God beside us, Jesus Christ, the word made flesh,born of a woman, servant of the poor, tortured and nailed to a tree.

A man of sorrows, he died forsaken.

He descended into the earth to the place of death.

On the third day he rose from the tomb.

He ascended into heaven, to be everywhere present,

and His kingdom will come on earth.

Leader 2: We believe

in God within us, the Holy Spirit of Pentecostal fire, life-giving breath of the Church, Spirit of healing and forgiveness, source of resurrection and of eternal life.

Amen

We share God’s Peace

Leader 1: May the God of peace

bring peace to our homes.

Leader 2: May the Son of peace

bring peace to our homes.

Leader 3: May the Spirit of peace

bring peace to our homes,

this day and all days.

Prayers for our world and our community

Open prayer lead by one of the leader voices

Leader 1: Christ, as a light

illumine and guide me.

Leader 2: Christ, as a shield

overshadow me.

Christ under me;

Christ over me;

Christ beside me

on my left and my right.

Leader 3: This day be within and without me,

lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.

Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;

in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.

Leader 1: This day be within and without me,

lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.

Christ as a light;

Christ as a shield;

Christ beside me

on my left and my right.

The Lords Prayer

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours

now and for ever.

Amen.

Blessing

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,

wherever He may send you.

May He guide you through the wilderness,

protect you through the storm.

May He bring you home rejoicing

at the wonders He has shown you.

May He bring you home rejoicing

once again into our doors.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Resources for this service have been taken from many sources amongst them are  http://www.faithandworship.com,  The Northumbria community,  Iona Community and have been brought together by Mark Johnston 

Poison Tree

Today the Daily Mail published a front page that dripped poison into our common life.  

It sank to a depth of hate that has not been seen since it was cheerleader for Oswald Mosely and Herr Hitler.

It suggested that the Teaching Unions were preventing Teachers from re-opening schools, it made a false plea to “Let Teacher be Heroes.   There was a real sense of  “Let them risk their lives for once”  

Schools have been open for this whole period of lockdown; teachers have been caring for children of key workers ie the children at most risk of exposure to the virus, and vulnerable children.  

Teachers have been delivering free school meals, personally ringing round the families of children in their schools, producing work that can be done at home, helping parent  home school,  fighting the bureaucratic systems  that government put  to support the most vulnerable children in our society,  working more hours than before.   

Please note I am not a teacher but I am a school governor and am therefore speaking with some knowledge   

I make this plea – please stop buying the Daily Mail - try and stop your family and friends from buying it.   In doing so we can silence one loud voice of hate that will try to drag us back to the broken society we were before.   

Poison Tree

Shadow over the face of the earth,

The familiar becomes a strange place

The wonder of our world seems changed

Poison seeps from the hearts of some

The goodness of so many, caring for friend and neighbour

Day to day courage of carers, all the hospital workers

Shopworkers, posties, teachers, council staff

Are stained by the hate that still hangs around  

The world has changed, we look out for our neighbours, our families

We value those who once we overlooked

We are all in this together

Do not allow the poison trees to stain our hope

We cannot return to a world of isolated lives 

disconnected, disjointed and careless

We are one people, in one world, one heart of love 

beats in each of us. Love drives out hate.

Easter 2020

The sun comes out and the silent town shines

A roofer only glimpsed now through the greening branches

A tree that I could see through a few days ago when they started work    

A car now and then on the main road

Hardly any go past us 

I see a tiny scrap of colour fly my way 

A Blue tit heading for the feeder   

 The sun passes and the sky is grey again but only now for a time

Gone are the weeks and weeks of dampness, darkness

Rain sodden land and heavy leaden skies

Now as the year turns toward Easter, the siege is lifted

The earth responds with daffodils and celandine

Daisies and wood anemones break out 

The birds sing and the search for nests is in earnest now

Eggs are waiting to be laid

In the dens cubs and kits beginning to open their eyes 

Heron eggs hatch in time for the frog and toad 

Migration to their birth ponds

The shackles of winter – this dull sullen winter are broken 

But we stay indoors, stay quiet - the roads are safe 

No toad wardens needed, a spring like no other

The air is clearer; the songs of the robin carry further

We keep apart from each other, only the families together

Fear walks the earth in each one of us 

Are we going catch this and carry it home? 

In silent empty churches dust falls but the christians are here

Easter is coming - no easter egg hunts - but the real hope

Christ dies on the cross and in hospitals all over, our hearts break  

But it is not all:  the Recreation of Hope, of Life in our broken lands

The living Christ fills us with a moment of joy

The promise of love triumphant, death overthrown, life eternal

When this is all over

When this is all over what

Will we remember?

Will it be loo paper and bread flour?

Will it be crowds in the shops?

Will it be social distancing?

Will it be closed churches?

Will it be recovering from a bug?

Will it be disrupted weddings?

Will it be funerals?

Will it be blue sky, sunshine and cold winds?

Will we remember the kindnesses?

Will we remember the press conferences?

Will we remember the empty shelves?

Will we remember the angry posts?

Will we remember only what Facebook reminds us?

Will we remember working from home ?

Will we remember anything?

I will try to remember the kindnesses

I will try to remember the people who smiled when we passed by

I will try to remember the golden days of spring

I will remember who was important

I will remember the health workers

I will remember the delivery drivers

I will remember the supermarkets workers

I will remember the bin men

I will remember the social care workers

I will remember the garage workers

I will remember the council workers

I will remember that footballers did nothing

I will remember that city traders did nothing

I will remember that bankers did nothing

I will remember that the rich and famous did nothing

I will remember that vloggers did nothing

What will we remember, when it comes round to paying our taxes ?

What will we remember, when it comes round to shopping normally?

What will we remember, when it comes round to saying thanks?

What will we do?