​I joined a poetry writing group this Spring.  Something I’d never done before.  I thought it was a learning group where my writing would be edited and critiqued, as the woman running it is a successful publisher and writer, but I was wrong.
 
Each 90 minute session, I joined 11 other poets on zoom, all from the USA.  The facilitator read a poem, which she shared on screen.  Then a quick one line prompt was offered and you were off, 10 minutes to write a poem in response to the one you’d heard.  I honestly didn’t think I would be able to do this.  For me, every poem I write just comes to me from somewhere, usually when I’m out in nature.  I’m just holding the pen. 
 
But here I was, so I had to have a go.  My first few attempts weren’t brilliant and the caliber of these poets was something else, many of them published many times.  I read my attempts out, almost cringing.  But these lovely men and women, were humble, helpful, honest and happy to have me on board.
 
Some were writing about grief, some about awful things in the news, some about nature.  Some poems were shocking, some were funny, all were worth listening to. Sometimes I felt I was in the presence of genius, often-times I wished I’d studied poetry or literature at University, not that I didn’t study poetry and drama and take many performance exams as a youth, but their understanding of construct and usage of words was informed and inspiring.
 
Some of what I wrote will be worked on in the future, some will be consigned to the bin.  But every poem I listened to and every poem I wrote had value.  I learned a lot. 
 
I learned to reserve judgement.  I learned that I’d like to learn more.  I learned that practicing writing rather than waiting for it to arrive yields results. 
 
And – it gave me 90 glorious minutes of me time every week for 4 weeks. 
 
So – here are a few of the poems I wrote under pressure, just as they arrived!  I’ve leave it to you to reserve judgement!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Shadow
 
And yet is that a ragged moon I see
silvering the dark?
Some echo of a sun from ages past
falling on a path I cannot see?
 
And am I brave enough to travel?
To pass between the rocks of my resistance?
 
Oh forward, forward fool and meet
your own existence
and when your shadow follows
turn and face it –
 
and watch it disappear.
 
 
Too full.
 
I am too full to let another in.
 
‘No room at the Inn’
we hear the sorry tale of segregation
and so I turn to Rumi
who welcomes one and all into his guesthouse.
 
But I am full to overflowing
with all my thoughts
and my intentions,
with my own hopes and dreams
and far too busy,
too wrapped in my beliefs
and my own stories to see
the gifts outside my door.
 
The presents all those people I do not know
are carrying.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lessons
 
There is a clarity in what I seek
And yet I cannot seem to find the words
to illuminate my way –
 
I stumble through excuses,
Snaring my limbs on barbs of old
Floundering along paths
laid firm in childhood.
 
And images,
Like the ones I used to find in clouds
Press down on me.
Dragons, Castles, dark and looming
And my parents’ voices droning in the front
As wheels wasted miles.
 
It’s there, the thing I seek
Have always sought.
And yet it will remain just out of reach
Until I can let go of lessons that you taught.
 
 
Found
 
It’s a small thing,
A cup of coffee in a special cup,
A bag of beans taken from the fridge
And swoosh, the cold air as I shut the door,
The clatter, patter of the beans as I pour
The rich dark into the chamber
The smell, ah the smell alone
can soften me.
 
The satisfying press of button,
The loudness of the grind
And the dog barking at the sound.
 
And then the magic,
The measuring of velvet into the pot,
The pouring of the hot, not boiling, water.
 
The cultivating of patience as it steeps,
Forcing myself to wait five minutes long.
 
I watch the milk heating in the pan,
Frothing around the edges,
 
And now,
Finally the moment’s here.
 
Set up the tray,
The sugar in the matching bowl
And the pretty little jug.
 
The coffee plunger sinking slowly into treasure.
 
And now I pour.
 
 
Gone
 
Father, brother, sister, mother
Gone
Gone into the abyss of memory
and disagreement.
 
Don’t
Don’t stand too close
Lest you lose your balance and in you’ll go
Gasping and flailing as if in poisoned gas.
 
Best leave well alone,
These wartime memories should stay buried.
 
 
Pilgramage
 
Where do we learn the lessons?
Out there?
Wandering in some God-forsaken landscape?
Or chewing over old passages
As dust motes circle ‘neath high windows?
 
Where do we think through truths?
In other people’s memoirs?
 
No.
 
Stay home, stay home.
 
Close the lid on the world
Shred the newspaper.
Feed the cat
and watch it sleep.
 
There,
There,
It’s all there.
 
 
 
Untitled
 
On the other side
I found myself awake
when I was sleeping
 
and striding into the dawning dark
I saw the stars collide and
fall out of the sky.
 
I shrugged,
dodged the stars,
and watched
as they dissolved in puddles.
 
 
The fires we light to see more clearly
 
As one we rose
And nose to tail we
walked toward the neon sign.
 
We stood in line
face down
intent upon our screens
from which all knowledge streamed.
 
As one we waited for the morning flare
The all-consuming glare
As windows opened
And shone upon the faithful.
 
And silently we scrolled
A million separate beings
Lost in the maze of algorithms
Yet known, one and all
by Amazon.
 
 
 
 
 
So much happiness
 
And bending low and slow
(for her youth was long lost
 in the wrinkles of time)
She touched the ticket
The golden ticket
lying in the gutter ripped,
which
meant it too had had a journey,
been punched and screwed and
dropped and stood upon,
and yet it had survived
and kept it’s golden hue.
 
She straightened,
Ticket now creasing within her closing fist.
She felt the shape of it
The serrated edges
The torn middle.
 
And smiling,
she walked on,
Tucking a strand of faded gold
Behind her ear.
 
 
 
Ecstasy
 
Is it in the search or in the finding?
Is it in the peak or in the climbing?
Is it in the bell or in the chiming?
Is it in the sigh or in the
 
Blinding, crashing, roaring,
howling, writhing, searing,
pulsing, emptying, dying
of the deed.
 
Sex indeed,
I ask you
 
Who’s it for?

Rising from a bed of ragged dreams I strode into the morn.

The whole village slept, even the cars, tucked in, bumper to bumper along the narrow lane; curtains drawn in cottage windows and me, strolling along the middle of the road, under a dawn sky fading from blush to blue.

Passing the woods, I stood and held my phone aloft to record the morning chorus.  From every corner of the valley different sounds, a cockerel, wood pigeons, rooks, blackbirds and so many more I didn’t know.  Not a dog barked, not any sound at all but birdsong.  Why oh why, didn’t I do this more often when I couldn’t sleep?  

Crossing the beck I cupped my hands under a little waterfall, the peat softened water dropping from my fingers as I splashed my face.  Did my ancestors do the same long ago?  Sheep stared as I started the climb, calf muscles pulling deliciously.

Sitting on a stone stile atop the field, the morning stretched before me, the blues and greens and greys of this northern rural landscape, old as time. Lapwings soared, curlews pee-witted and a tiny but brave little bird landed on the wall only feet away from me and considered me gravely.

​Boulsworth is a tough little hill and from Trawden, you’ve already walked a 2 mile gradual incline before you get to the foot of it, so once on the hill proper, I didn’t feel too bad stopping every hundred feet or so to have a breather and inspect the view.  This was I admit, the earliest in the day I have ever climbed Boulsworth. I came up once on New Years Day around 9, but I’d not been here at 6.30!

What can I say?  The peat was slightly frozen, my boots crunched and squished into the soft mud below, last year’s heather scratched, moorland tufts of grass tickled, wind found its way inside my collar.  My legs ached, my lungs gasped and my heart blew itself wide open with the sheer joy of it all.  

I startled moorhens, their throaty cackle echoing across the wide expanse. But other than their indignant call, all was silent.  I headed for the huge boulders that dominate the ridge.  From the village they appear to be no more than 4 equi-distant piles of stones, but as you climb you realise the might and size of these glacial boulders.  The path I’d chosen to climb this morning was the most direct one, practically straight up to Little Chair Stones, where the formation of the boulders provides a ledge tucked away from the wind and up there this morning, the wind was chilly.  After days of unseasonable warm weather in this last week of March, that had seen youngsters baring shoulders and legs, I was only just warm enough in thermals and a woolly hat! 

I love the walk across the ridge of Boulsworth; the black of the peat, the grey and rust of the coarse grass, the views as far as the Lake District to the North and nothing but moor after rolling moor to the South East. It’s a place to feel alone but never lonely.  I leaned on the trig and gazed across to Pendle hill, its outline soft in the morning haze, my first hill at age 3 or 4 and the hill I’d seen in the moonlight above me as I camped out many times with friends in my early teens.  Where have all the roaming teenagers gone I thought? Where are the kids building dens and messing in streams.  You just don’t see that anymore. Will they one day walk and climb and find joy in the outdoors like me?

​Waking in the morning after a night filled with dreams, where I was years younger, I still feel tired. I know I’ve woken several times, once for at least an hour, and that’s normal these days, during which I made tea and toast and read chapters of a good book, before settling back down for another two hours.

It’s aching bits and pieces that lead to the waking, mostly shoulder and neck, so there’s a lot of turning side to side and folding pillows into comfy shapes. But this body has folded and carried and borne and raised children and cared and lifted parents and driven thousands of miles and sat at desks for hours, so it deserves a few aches.

The year is ageing too, trees mulberry against grey skies, fields sodden between wet walls, dark at four. But the years have led me to this window, this view and for this, and the coffee in my favourite cup, my heart smiles.

Strange, that as the body becomes less flexible, my mind becomes more so. The years have lain down experiences like layers of sand and as I dig through the layers and stir the memories, they shift and mingle, giving me new perspectives and reflections.

The greatest gift of my ageing, I feel, is an appreciation of time.

When I was young and cramming all of life into every day, with a body strong and an ego racing, each day was both short and a competition. How much could I achieve, how many tasks could I tick off my list, how many more clients could I gain? This was the normality of 20th century ambition. Better car, larger house, more holidays, nicer restaurants. How shallow it sounds. But it was the way of middle class grammar school educated young things, born of UK post war striving parents. Their version of a better world was security. Their rules were work hard, get a good job, get a mortgage, progress in your career, try to make a difference, never give up. The conditioning of the baby boomers.

Might as well have said, you will wear yourselves out, as the world changes its priorities and leaves your loyalty behind. And the world needed to change and more so today than ever.

But my loyalty and graft was not wasted. It was a lesson to my children. They sat with X boxes in front of MTV and dreamed of freedom. They watched my tutorials and chose to write their own, filled with exploration, openness and generosity. I watch them fly.

To the present then. To classical music and rooks rising over the copse and letting the emails wait for half an hour.

To hearing birdsong through the open window and saying thank you for another day. To starting the day slowly, with a coffee in my favourite cup.

To the memories of six of us in the kitchen, fighting for the cornflakes, falling over trainers, slinging sacks on backs and slamming doors, stacking pots in dishwashers, grabbing briefcases and car keys.

Layers upon layers of life and now some time to consider the lessons learned.

Time is finite and infinite. Time is both fast and slow. There are 60 minutes in every hour and hopefully another 25 or so years in this life of mine.

As I walk a little slower, I find I have the time to look at the life around me. As I sit on a boulder half way up a hill, I have time to drink in the view. As I soak in the bath, without interruption, I have the time to reflect on the day.

This having time to reflect is revelatory. It settles and centres me. It helps me make rounded decisions. It gives me the space to wonder rather than judge. It is something I fear many of our young are currently unaware of, this gift of consciousness that sets us apart from other animals. I hope in time, they will switch off their screens and lift their heads to look each other in the eye.

I always have had 24 hours in a day I know, but the preciousness of them was never so apparent as it is this Spring, as we emerge from lockdowns and losses.

As many of us once again combine work and home, I encourage you to take a little time, to stand back and watch the scene play out in front of you, to say nothing, just to let the seconds slide once in a while, while you silently thank the Universe or your God or whatever or whomever you believe in, for your safe passage through a year like no other. May this year bring an world wide end to the pandemic and a beginning to the realisation that love and time are our most precious commodities. May we value care above capital, people above profit and sharing above share value .