Poets' Corner

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Comment by Naomi Linnell on December 23, 2011 at 10:41am

Good Morning Everyone

A poem for Christmas:

Only the heart hears the music

Near a village called Azincourt where once were gathered up
the bones of the slaughtered nine thousand, there is a peaceful forest.
Great trees, their massive trunks like carved stone pillars
raise high their branched arches to the sky, and the leaf dappled
sun lights up a tranquil space, a vast sylvan cathedral
whose bosky peal proclaims Sitque Pax non Bellum

For across these green lands men and horses have trampled;
around these woods death has come untimely by sword and arrow,
knife and noose, treachery and bullet, mine and gun.
The screech owl mimics the cries of the dying,
and the craters of destruction
masquerade as pools of sweet white lilies.

In the blackest night only imagination can see the light;
in the deepest silence only the heart hears music;
God alone can speak with the voice of a man who has no tongue.
Let your tired eyes embrace the bright darkness,
your heart rejoice in the outpourings of the passionate nightingale
and gentle quiet surround your restless soul.
God is in the darkening light and the muted crescendo;
his the still voice that echoes far, like thunder
dancing amongst the jubilant hills.
By a million years of blood and bone have these sacred fields
and lonely woods been nourished, and Mary’s Christ Child sleeps
secure now, in an old stable beneath the sheltering trees.
The Lord is in this place.

Happy Christmas Everyone

God bless us all

Naomi

Comment by Thomas Kirchhoff on December 11, 2011 at 5:23pm

Good evening, Yes, Advent is a special time. A time of silence and expectation. Many memories are awakened. Of happy days and less fortunate. However, the good thoughts dominate. I wish you all peaceful days of Advent. The day is near, on which the salvation of the world was born. Many greetings from Germany,  Thomas.

Comment by Lynda Keen on December 7, 2011 at 1:29pm

I must admit I totally lost respect for Rowan Williams as I was present at the speech where he said publicly that Sharia law should be introduced into Britain, especially for family law. Having seen at first hand the effects on women of Sharia family law, that the head of my  church should suggest such a thing horrified me.

However, he has redeemed himself slightly in my eyes with this lovely poem and also because this week he said that Jesus would have been with the Occupy movement as its objectives tally with His teachings.

Comment by Naomi Linnell on December 6, 2011 at 7:42pm

Good evening everyone.

What a lovely poem,Lynda.  Rowan Williams so often, too often I feel, gets a less than enthusiastic press, so it is good to read him at his lyrical best.  

I like Advent.  Quite apart from childhood memories of the excitement and the enchantment of approaching Christmas, it is such a wonderful time of preparation for our annual affirmation of the presence of God in our world, and in us.  Anticipation of the miracle that is the birth of any new life can be life-affirming; how much more sublime to welcome the mystery of God revealed through the story of a birth in a stable. Myth or historical fact, this is something that I, an Unitarian heretic, can wholeheartedly share with my Christian friends.

God bless us all,

Naomi

 

Comment by Thomas Kirchhoff on December 6, 2011 at 1:39pm

Good afternoon, Lynda, I thank you for the hint. I wish you a blessed season of Advent. Give my regards to London. Yours sincerely Thomas

Comment by Lynda Keen on December 6, 2011 at 9:58am

Advent Calendar by Rowan Williams
http://networkedblogs.com/r85XV

Comment by Thomas Kirchhoff on October 24, 2011 at 10:10am

Good morning, Naomi, I thank you for the beautiful poem. Yes, autumn is already a special time, with a unique character. This year it is especially beautiful. And yet he invites you to think.The beauty comes in mind, but also mortality. - Our cats seem not to touch it all, they frolic through the house and put in a lot of nonsense. I wish you beautiful autumn days! Best regards, Your Thomas

Comment by Naomi Linnell on October 23, 2011 at 11:56am

Good Morning Thomas, Lynda, Jean and Laura,

I hope you are all happy and well.  We have yet another day of golden sunshine here on the Kent coast, but with an exhilarating autumnal chill in the air.  I hope Thomas that the day goes well in Germany and that your beautiful cats are flourishing.  

This is a poem about Autumn - some of the lines are a bit long for this lay-out, but no matter ... 

 

Autumn:  The Song of the Horn Poppy

 

 Seeds wafting along the beach in the crisp air of the October morning,

we dance all day with an ebullient breeze, a seminal Morisca 

jaunty and passionate, in a circle of unchanging hope.

 At last I sink to the ground weary in the calm of an owl hooting evening,

and on fine shingle kelp brown, safe in  my lonely solitude,

I sleep.

 

In the cold sandy earth, as the soft rains of May gently penetrate my meagre

covering, I awake. The nascent summer sun warms my dark home

and I stretch my roots deep beneath my stony bed.

I push pallid green shoots and fragile golden buds upwards into a 

trembling June birth. I leave the sheltering womb,

I am newly born.

 

  My home is the salty margin of the shore where kittiwake and tern orbit

and plunge, feathered arrows piercing the abundant waves.

My stem is thick clasped by succulent leaves, grey green

like the waters of the bay beneath the ever changing light. Nourished

by my stony ground, embracing wind and storm, 

I reach up to the sky.

 

Each of my flowers opens its golden cup to the sun, each horn is pregnant

with a hundred seeds, new life rampant now within the old.

The measure of the days of my flowers is but one, 

and slow showers of petals fall from glaucous stalks like 

tarnished stars onto the dying surface of some long spent planet.

Soon my own short span of years will be done and 

I too shall die.  

 

 My seeds, raven black, blue black, scattered by birds, plucked into the air 

by importunate winds, will fall to the cold evening ground

 and they also will sleep the long winter through. 

So it all begins again.

 

In this mighty ever turning circle of life and death and resurrection, we celebrate

 and dance the rituals of our ancient Trinity, thus to honour 

the elements which by the grace of God sustain us,

 Earth, and Air, and Rain.  

May the good Lord bless us all,

Naomi

Comment by Thomas Kirchhoff on September 3, 2011 at 10:24am

Good morning, Naomi, I thank you for the beautiful poem. Best wishes from Germany, Your Thomas

Comment by Naomi Linnell on August 19, 2011 at 11:21am

Hallo, Good Morning,

 

thank you Lynda for your welcome, I am delighted to be able to be a member of this group.

 

Recently I have come across a contemporary 'rural poet' whose small collection "In Search of Silence" I like very much.  Chris Roe lives and works in rural Norfolk, and his poems are shot through with allusions to the Norfolk landscape.  He has given me permission to reproduce a poem here:

Eternal Journey
 
As the crimson flame of life
Breaks slowly
Above the horizon,
The white, frosted meadows,
With trees and hedgerows
Of sculptured ice,
Speak loudly
Of your presence.
 
Once more
Upon this journey,
As another day begins,
Without effort
Or intrusion,
Through the peace
And tranquillity
Of your silent voice,
The moment becomes eternal,
And the journey
Begins again.

Chris Roe

 

I hope that the sunshine that blesses us this morning down on the coast of Kent will lighten your day also.

 

Naomi

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