Rejected Verses 61-70

  61. Outside the shop beside the school

 

She was not beside me when we played school games

On low January evenings in the wind and the rain.

Not for her the muddy rugby fields where boys were men

Where loyalty was forged in the furnace of the fight.

She stood outside the local shop with bright lipstick

Shimmering black tights and studied insouciance.

 

Later we met and sometimes we endured

The ordinary flux and flow,

Compassion and indifference, hopes and fears,

Failings and triumphs, the common conquests

The spoken and unspoken.

 

At times both victim and Good Samaritan,

Helped and helper until eventually

A light pierced the mist and picked out

The cathedral spire of our loves and hopes

And our childhood aspirations.                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 62. When first I hear the forest birds  

 

When first I hear the forest birds

I kiss the ground with every step

I won’t grind and pound

But dance and skip around! 

 

Not for me a great garden

For I cannot choose

But just a simple window box

To study and peruse

 

I cannot embrace a forest

I’m but a one tree man

Each tree holds the universe

Within its leafy span.

 

 

 

 

 

 

63 Glory Be 

 

Glory be

The force and mind

That conceived all being.

 

Before time was time

When chaos reigned

Between competing galaxies.

 

Glory be the mind

That conceived the key

To now and eternity.

 

Praise be peace and silence

That provides a window

To glimpse beyond somehow.

 

Wonder be eternity

Where we shall ever dwell

You and me.

 

 

 

 

 

64 Give me heat, but not the sun 

 

Give me heat but not the sun

Keep me warm but in the shade

Out of the wind but with a breeze

That ruffles curtains at midday

 

I cannot bear the steamy dog days

The sweltering summer heat that overcomes

Leaving us lifeless and listless

I long for milder autumn morns

 

Cooler nights that bring some mercy

Cooler tiles beneath our naked feet

A fresher sky that breaks the spell

And helps escape the summer hell.

 

 

 

 

 

65. Rooted to the Land

 

Rooted to the land he loved

And the buildings he called home

An anchor on the starry way

That marks his humble passage.

 

He vows to stay and hold the fort

While others roam to foreign lands

He loves the window looking down the drive,

That winds up to his sanctuary.

 

To sit and stare and contemplate

The magic of the here and now

The comfort of the ordinary

The company of the habitual.

 

He studies every nook and cranny

He follows sunlight as it creeps along the study

Even the frayed carpet seems much more

Than palaces and castles from abroad.

 

He loved the nights when the rain came

Streaming down the window pane

The howling gale screamed against

The sighing chimney breast.

 

The handsome hall with marbled tiles

The kitchen filled with cooking pots

The bedrooms heaving with the blankets

He tucked up to his chin on winter nights.

 

Oh happy home in a world of change

Oh steady marker in the galaxy

That hurtles through the universe

Oblivious to his little life.

 

His little life is big to him

This life is all he’s got

Do not disdain his smallness

In his heart he holds the universe.

 

 

 

 

 

66. Brotherly Love

 

He spent his good years looking after her

His sickly younger sister

He cared for her in health

But mostly in her sickness.

 

For richer and for poorer

As mostly poor they were

He nursed her in the family home

Their parents long time gone.

 

When other youths were drinking

And chasing after women

He read her novels and the poems 

By her bedside in the evening

 

Grey middle age crept up

As they drank from china cups

That came all the way from Burma

Before the family blew its money.

 

He watched from the study window

At children he had chosen not to have

His child was his younger sister

Condemned to an ancient wheelchair.

 

He never complained his lot

As silently the pages dropped

From the calendar in the hall

As leaves in the autumn fall.

 

Was it a life he lived at all?

Lived in the shadows, out of the light

The days worn like old clothes,

No longer recent or bright.

 

Does the universe care for this love

Is there any hope that grace from above?

Will salute the courage and care

The love that’s always been there?

 

 

 

67. Quakers aren’t quitters                                     

 

Quakers aren’t quitters

We don’t give up on folk

Whether their views

Are different to ours.

 

We try to rise above the fray

We try to avoid a tribal mêlée  

Seeing that of God in those

Who chose to leave or chose to stay.

 

Looking to embrace each citizen

No matter what their Brexit vision

Seeking to raise hearts and minds

To reunite the civic family.

 

Leaving propaganda at the door

We leave outside our shoes and views

We center down and forget the news

And embrace the silent Meeting.

 

All are welcome here

All are embraced equally

We are after all a Society

Called unashamedly Friendly.

 

 

 

 

68. I’ve the whole world here at my feet

 

I’ve the whole world here at my feet

As I sit in the hospital ward

In my mind I can see the heavens

I can also travel the stars.

 

Content with my lot and my nurses

Feeling no anger or pain

Unable to walk or to wander

The world is right here in my brain.

 

Long gone are the days of my travels

My travel’s done safely in bed

The whirr and whoosh of the monitors

Who faithfully follow me out.

 

Soon this bed will belong to another

To another who travels my way

I don’t mind being helpful 

On this, my final day.

 

I hope more than trust what then follows

Is the final return to the fold

When I yield to a point of ecstasy

To a family where my story is told.

 

 

 

 

69. I stood by the cold graveside

 

I stood by the cold graveside

A misty afternoon at end of year;

Life and death were hardly separated

A thin film is all that lay between

The living and the dead.

 

Birds sang, inviting Spring,

The hearses now made way

To quiet visits and silent grieving

That lasted down the decades

With flowers and memories fresh.

 

The tidy graves beside forgotten ones

Some neatly kept with bouquets new

Gravel raked and marble polished

Silently rebuking the plots abandoned

By those who came but once on the funeral day.

 

The balance sheet of life exposed

Of those who loved and love grown cold 

The granite tells the story of a life

In three short lines, no more.

 

Who will come and visit by my grave

When the world has long forgotten me

Who will bring flowers for my tenth

And fortieth anniversaries?

 

Lying two feet apart, the humble and the great

Two feet apart the poor and upper class

The doting grandad, the grieving wife,

The tiny toddler, all left this life.

 

 

 

 

70. The doomsday clock counts down

 

The doomsday clock counts down

God forbid we hear its gong

The last sound heard by a race

That fell so sadly out of grace.

 

The tolling of the midnight bells

Call not to prayer in a cemetery

Where coffins lie unburied

The last loved of this century.

 

We can turn this round, you know

If we pull together and somehow

Apply the brakes to this runaway show

If bravely leading, others will follow.

 

We will banish arms and make some peace

So future generations may enjoy

Birdsong at the break of day

Pressing on, whatever they say.

 

What they say doesn’t interest me

Putting food on the table to finish misery

To get it going, to get it started

Will take a few, two or three.

 

Not looking back like Lot’s poor wife

Salt of the earth but no celestial sight

We’re hoping high, we’re aiming higher

To prove this doomsday clock a liar.