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