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Wellbeing
Poem: Stones. Sunday Retold.
The open doorway of St Peter-on-the-Wall (founded about 660 AD). The wall in question is Roman. The chapel was built using some of the old stone from that wall. Bradwell, Essex.
I took a look at the set readings for this coming Sunday (17th November), and they are difficult and unsettling. Something about the Gospel reading caught my attention, and I thought I’d follow where that led.
Mark 13:1-8
And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” 2 And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
3 And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” 5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 And when you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.
Once again in our world, we see wars, we see power misused, we see the places where we might put our hope and trust are frail. Just this week, the Church of England has been forced to reckon with terrible abuse that has taken place, and the failure of those in authority to protect the young. And COP 29 has opened with the absence of many leaders, and the presence of corruption – although I have been encouraged to see Kier Starmer taking a lead. Much that has seemed firm has been crumbling, and at the same time, forces which seem to be serving themselves seem very powerful, immovable. It’s a hard place to be for many, and we may need to give time to our fear and grief. We may need to find others with whom to walk through these hard places.
And so, turning to this reading, I see we are invited into something like a practice of deep realism, and a long view. We remember that for Mark’s early readers and listeners, this passage would call to mind the terror and trauma of the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 after a relentless seige by the Romans. The Roman historian Josephus records that 1.1 million people died during that time. It’s hard to imagine the suffering and shock of such loss. It must indeed have felt the end of the world. It was the end of the world for many. Even in the midst of such terror and shock, these words may have offered something to hold on to. Maybe there is some wisdom here about how to live through difficult times, when all seems destroyed, or we fear all may be destroyed. Such wisdom is arrived at through pain and loss, it is not intended as some kind of spiritual bypassing, that eveything is going to be fine. Everything is not fine. That much is clear.
So this poem, written in response to Jesus’ words, is an experiment in that long view. I hope that, if it lands with you at the right moment, it might resonate with you.
Stones
These beautiful stones
This beautiful Temple
all that wealth and power
all Herod’s might and posturing
Always, always can
and will be
thrown down.
And always, always, it is not
the end of all things
although it is the end.
For time still stretches out
among ruins lost to
twilight,
and dust settles, or
blows on the grey wind.
Strength seems invincible.
Stones seem solid, immovable.
The might and ritual of a temple
have such sure foundations
in the mind.
And yet time, wind, whispers,
armies, the running of water,
the roots of trees can and will
undo them all.
So do not be cowed
by these great walls,
for they will fall,
nor by their falling
For fall they must,
and the world will turn
and turn again, and what
was an ending may come
to seem the blowing of dry
leaves in autumn, an absence –
it may even, dare we hope,
begin to be birth-pangs, after all.
Gaia at Ely Cathedral. You can find more about that – including a poem – here.
You might enjoy this gentle conversation(Nomad Podcast) with the the musician Jon Bilbrough, known as Wilderthorn. Towards the end is some music recorded in the chapel pictured at the head of this post, St Peter-on-the-wall.
I’m turning back to that chapel in my mind – imagining how the stones from the old Roman wall, probably a fort, were reused in the building of this – itself ancient – place of peace and prayer.
Swords beaten into ploughshares, and things being made new.
New things can and do emerge, in time. That is something we can gather around, and work for.
From Prayers and Verses These are prayers in response to the stories of Exile we find in the Hebrew Scriptures, and I know that experience will resonate with many today. I hope this helps.
Poem: September. Bees. Ivy.
This poem has arrived on the blog a little late. It became marooned in my notebook for a while, until I flicked through the pages and found it again. And although crowds of bees are no longer buzzing among the ivy, there are still a few, here and there.
I hope, though, that although this poem arose out of a particular time, it has something to say in other times, too. About stillness. About the restorative power of simply being, and paying attention. About finding our breath again. We all need that. We all need to feel that connection to the rest of the natural world (oh, how I wish we had better language for these things – bear with, it will emerge) which grounds us, and from which we can rise. For those reading this blog who need a little peace right now, I hope it helps. I’m thinking particularly of dear readers in America, where the election atmosphere seems turbulent. I wish you well over the next days and weeks.
The old hedgeline in front of our house has, in places, been overcome by ivy, which has formed its own structures and patterns of flowering and fruiting. Cutting some of it back to make space for other plants to grow, I was careful to leave the ivy flowers for the bees – which will become fruit for the birds in time. Accidentally, I created a little bower, where I put a chair and sat for a while. As I sat I gradually heard the road less and less, as my attention was taken up with the many bees who were enjoying the feast. And so, this poem emerged.
thebiologist.rsb.org
September. Bees. Ivy.
It is taking a while,
this sitting
in a carved out cave
in the ivy.
Just sitting,
stilling, breathing.
A bower of green leaves
above, and above that
blue sky, white clouds.
In time, the hum of bees,
and their intricate woven
patterns of flight,
come to replace thoughts,
become another form
of thought.
So too the birds –
that wren shaking
the leaves, and
the pipping robin.
And this grey and green lacework
of wild is all that separates
me from the roar of the road –
those black lines we make,
always going
somewhere….
And yet, here is a marvel.
More bees than I have
seen all year. A hum that soothes
the soul. The darkness of butterflies.
These strands of green woven
through the world – not enough,
by no means enough –
But they shelter the bees,
and me. A space for
the soft and alive,
breathing, green in spirit.
We can be here, the bees and me.
We can be, in this hollowed out
hedge, in a cloud of lightfilled wings.
COP 28: a small, local action – tree exchange
I must admit to feeling disheartened in the run up to another COP, where the oil and gas companies seem to be seeing the talks as an opportunity to do business, rather than prioritise moving to cheaper and cleaner and more local alternatives. The powers that be sometimes seem especially powerful.
So here’s a tiny, smaller-than-David-vs-Goliath idea which is currently happening in my drive. Just in case any of you good readers feel similarly, and are looking for small but meaningful actions. There’s a lot of us who care, who want to leave the world in as good a state as we can. So, rather than despairing over what isn’t happening, here’s something that is. Mighty oaks from little acorns and all that…..
It all started a couple of weeks ago, when my husband came across one of our old neighbours digging tiny tree seedlings out of a council flowerbed. Unsuprisingly, he asked her what she was doing. She replied that a friend of hers had two acres she was trying to replant as woodland, and was looking for trees. Now, I express unease on a regular basis about the number of tree seed- and saplings I pull out of our garden. The squirrels are very keen on planting nuts, which germinate remarkably well for instance….. So, he mentioned it to me, and I got in touch with the lady with the two acres. I dug out all the readily available saplings, and began to collect them from other people. The first load of about 100 trees went to her, and to someone else who has twelve acres they’re rewilding.
I wondered if other people might have spare trees in their garden, so emailed my friends at Transition Woodbridge, who passed the message on. Trees are arriving most days, and another person has expressed a need for small native trees, especially ones suitable for growing in a hedge. Another friend also has a number of oaks springing up in her allotment. So we have more sources of trees, and more places where they can go. It’s always good when actions become collective, when people gather together and all do the little bit they can.
Now, who knows where this will go, but for now, I reckon we’ve easily been able to provide a new home for getting on for 200 infant trees. That’s not nothing. That is something. It’s food for insects and birds, it’s shelter, it’s improved soil fertility and water management, it’s less carbon and more oxygen. It’s one in the eye for despair, too.
So, here’s to taking the small actions we can. You never know where they might lead. In 100 years from now, those nine tiny oaks might be home to many creatures, having a profoundly positive impact on soil, air and water …. And carbon. Nearly all life on the planet is carbon based, after all.
Poem: A solitary shining drop
Sedum, after the rain had cleared.
The practice of wandering – often around the garden – contines to be a a helpful one for me, quieting and contemplative. The practice of standing still and looking, too. Quite a lot of apparent “nothing” seems to be fertile ground, after all. Something catches my attention, as if it is saying: ‘look, here is something, a marvel, a meaning, a glimpse of beauty’. I am coming to think they are happening all the time, and what makes the difference is my openness to seeing, hearing and knowing them.
And so, when the sun broke through after the rain, I went outside, and sat on my coat, and looked. Some distance across the lawn, I saw a bright red light, flashing, and, curious, saw a drop of rain acting as a prism. I watched it for as long as the angle of light made it shine with colour. It called to mind two ancient stories – the burning bush, and the flood – from the Hebrew Scriptures. How the world is full of epiphanies. And again, I was in awe of the way the natural world – of earth and fire, water and air – invites us to listen, to pay attention, to wonder.
A solitary shining drop
Just now, I saw the sun
catching a raindrop as it
rolled so slowly down a
sedum stem, fleshy
and green.
It shone through red, rich,
neon and ruby, flashing as the
stem swayed in the breeze, taking
the drop through that one
ray of light, back and forth.
Then it suddenly changed
to the dazzling blue of cobalt
and lapis lazuli – oh, heavenly blue.
Heavenly blue.
Just now, for a moment, this
treasure made of light and rain,
this solitary shining drop
becomes a tiny shard of promise,
a slim fragment of the arc
that holds the sun and the rain.
It all speaks. All speaks. In the
mind’s quiet, and in a flash of
brilliance that turns your head.
A gentle whisper and a
burning bush, both.
A drop and a rainbow.
The world shines with
meaning, murmuring,
as the green earth is
drenched by sun and rain.
Poem: Matisse Cut-Outs, and a nod to David Hockney
Matisse, The Parakeet and the Mermaid, 1952
I shared a poem with you last week – What the space holds. Writing that poem reminded me of the extraordinary Matisse cut-outs, imagining the negative spaces left when his scissors had finished thier task. I realised that I’d never shared with you a poem I wrote about those works…..
Tate Modern in London had a very beautiful exhibition some years ago, in 2014, of these late and astonishing cut-outs. I was deeply moved by what we saw and experienced. You can still buy the catalogue from The Tate – and other places too – if you’re interested. As ever, as a book that accompanies a major exhibition, it is a revealing and insightful exploration of the work.
A thing that struck me was the contrast between the photos of the frail but engrossed artist, towards the end of his life, and the vibrant, joyful celebration of life itself that the cut-outs embodied. The vitatlity of the art he created sang from the walls. Finding it hard to make art in the ways he had before, he developed this extraordinary technique to transform his relatively confined spaces into a paradise of form and colour.
I felt the deep wisdom of this response, this openness to beauty, to nature, to life as a whole. It seemed to offer a brightness that could illuminate our days.
Matisse Cut-Outs
The rooms are thick and warm
with people looking, in reverence.
There is a hush
as we move like pilgrims
through doorways
and spaces full of quiet light.
There are photographs of you, in bed,
or tucked in a chair, old and crumpled.
Yet, in your outstretched hand is that
long stick, tipped with charcoal,
drawing, drawing,
or a curling pile of paper at your feet,
unravelling from those black scissors.
When the outside became unreachable
you turned your rooms into a garden,
with swallows dancing on the walls,
and fig leaves, and pomegranates,
mermaids and stars.
You are covering your walls with
bright cut-outs that sway in the warm breeze,
lavender and myrtle, while you breathe deep.
This is what you did
while pain nagged close,
while death grew closer.
You made the beauty
you could make.
You made joy visible.
You did not stop –
in the shadow of
so much destruction,
so much war-grief –
you kept the charcoal
and the scissors moving,
an Eden at your ending.
I thought again about this exhibition a few weeks ago when I went to the Lighroom at King’s Cross with my daughter to see David Hockney’s Bigger and Closer (not smaller and further away). I loved the way the projections immersed you in the work, especially the Spring pieces he’s been developing using an i-Pad. You felt the power and beauty of the trees bursing into life, the brightness of the green, the froth of the cow-parsley. I bought a book as a souvenir, Spring Cannot be Cancelled, which I’m currently reading. It’s particularly good at capturing the mood of lockdown in his Normandy studio, and the intensity of the observations of the arrival of spring that time of isolation and deep uncertainty generated.
I was wondering whether to couple these two art events together, I do hope Hockney has many more prolific years ahead to enrich us all. I do not mean to suggest that he is an artist at the end of his life. But it seems to me there is something in common between these two artists in the intensity, freedom and joy of their later work. There is a real clear-sightedness and poignancy in the appreciation of beauty, and an urgency too. There is a deep embodied wisdom and wonder which pours through to the viewer.
It reminds me of Mary Oliver’s “instructions for living a life”:
“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
Poem: Unknown. June twilight 10 o’clock
A starry wood – photographer unknown.
Welcome back to the blog! Thank you for joining me here in the garden again.
One of the great joys of summer evenings is going outside to look at what’s happening in the warm, long twilights. In particular, I love to look for bats as they tumble and swoop over the long grass, and above the shrubs. Last year, we had a bat recorder in the garden, part of Transition Woodbridge’s wildlife corridors project. It’s fascinating to find out what treasures we have, and to work together to try and encourage more. There was an evening event with feedback, and you can find out a bit more about it here, following the links. I was sad to have missed it, as we were away. But I know there are bats here.
The garden at night is a very different place from in the day, quite mysterious. I’ve been thinking about the many creatures who come to or live in the garden who I don’t know and can’t name. I’m learning all the time, but the more you find out, the more you realise how much you don’t know. I’m learning too not to mind the mystery, to find out what I can but to just enjoy the beauty and variety of creatures we get to see, and hear. To notice the detail and the behaviour of creatures that may in time help me to find out what they are, but now the noticing is enough, and a real source of delight. We know the muntjak and the fox, and a hedgehog from time to time, are there at night, we hear an owl and know there are mice, and probably voles, but the unknown creatures bring something special to the experience of being in the garden too, Not rushing to id everything, but instead being open to observe with awe, is something I’m coming to love. You don’t need to know what things are called to appreciate them. You can also do your own naming!
So this theme, of unknown and unnamed things, begins to unfold in this poem. I think there might be a few more pieces exploring this way of seeing too.
I don’t have the tech for night-time photography, so the words will have to do.
Unknown
June twilight 10 o’clock
We went outside to look for bats,
up against the navy and turquoise sky,
up among the slick sycamore leaves,
up above the long grass where
pale moths flutter.
We waited in the thickening dark,
quieting, and then saw a black shape
twisting and swooping amongst
the other night-flyers –
a heavy beetle lumbering,
ghost-moths, silver gnats.
In the day, all can seem
sweetness and light. The smell
of roses and lilies hanging in the soft air.
Our own familiar world, we can think.
But now, darkness reaches
closer than our
outstretched fingertips.
The bat flies overhead,
joined by another,
and another,
and we hear sounds too
down in the long grass
down in the deep cover of
the borders.
A rustling and a moving
that grows louder as the
space is transfigured
by darkness, strange
creatures blooming in the
imagination, unknown
and unnamed.
As looking up again, I see
the gathering stars
sometimes obscured by
stretched and fluttering wings.
There is so much unknown
to me, so many names
have never been on my lips.
The quietness of unknowing
is upon me, even as
I seek to learn. And
I find I am discovering, mainly,
what it is to live in wonder,
to walk slowly, and in awe.
Poem: The Wash, high tide, knots rising
Last month we took a few days to visit Norfolk, staying by the Wash. UK viewers of Winter Watch and others may have seen some awe-inspiring film of one of the UK’s greatest wildlife events – sometimes called the Snettisham Spectacular. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to see it for yourself. We decided we’d go and try and catch this sight, when a very high tide drives the birds off the mix of saltmarsh and water, into the air in huge flocks, and down into lagoons cared for by the RSPB. Their website (linked above) will help you get a taste of what its like, as well as some information about when these high tides happen.
Of course, there are never any guarantees with nature, but we got up very early and went to Snettisham in the dark, on a cold February morning, full of anticipation. I’d decided on flasks of coffee – which turned out to be an excellent idea! It was the most moving experience, deeply awe-inspiring, to see a landscape so full of life, and the wildness behaving freely as it should. I am sure that there have been times when there were more birds, and more wild, here, but it was nonetheless a glimpse of a more beautiful world, the world closer to how it should and can be.
You may also be aware that this precious landscape is vulnerable, and a new development could have a huge impact. If you want to find out more about that, you could begin here.
I wanted to try and capture the beauty of what we saw, and also the depth of experience that aroused in us and the others perhaps who were gathered there, and so this poem recounts the journey through the dark, and into the dawn-light of this beautiful sight.
C and A Wild Images Knots
High tide, the Wash, knots rising.
Out in the Wash-marsh,
the dark-before-dawn,
we walked
uncertainly, deeper in,
listening warily for water
sounds, mud sounds,
as we heard, out on our right,
the loudness of bird and tide.
Restless, growing, imminent.
The path seemed so long
in the dark, unknowing and
unseeing as we were.
On and on until at last we came out of
hedge-shadows and reed rustles,
out on the open bank of shingle,
with a chill wind blowing,
with the dark softening into the grey of
mist and ice-fret, as out of the
greyness emerged
a gathering crowd, moving, looking,
watching that density of black birds
emerging too, out there on the
mudbanks and sandbanks,
crowding as the water was rising,
All prickling with anticipation,
all readying for flight.
Through a lens you could see the
black backs of oystercatchers,
tens of thousands, all facing one way,
bright beaks aligned like many compasses.
And further out, paler knots,
rippling over the shrinking land,
their voices sounding together
as water lapped and lapped ever deeper,
full of fish washed in on this rapid tide,
followed by the hungry seals,
heads up, and hunting.
The bird noise grows, and the waders
begin their great lift,
A few at first, tip toed,
up and down like dancers
performing the perfect jete. Then,
as waves pour over their islands
and there is no room for all these birds,
They lift and stay lifted, from the edges,
like a great cloth, swirling now
above fast running water
rilled with small waves.
And then the oystercatchers
begin to pour like dark smoke,
like sentient smoke, as one,
all to the right, pour down
into the lagoons behind us.
While the knots, catching
the rising light, rise too,
turning pale now, loud with cries
and loud too with wings,
like a great crowd running joyously,
like a shining cloud swirling in the wind
but with mind, with being, with will,
a great pale creature rustling
and winding through the air over us,
close and low, and then down
in a whispering snake’s head behind.
And again, and again, rise up more
swirls of birds, faster and wider by
the tens of thousands, of wings
all together, birds turning together,
a miracle of unity,
As wings beat like hurried feet
as more people rush to look up,
and the waves take more and more
ground from under us all.
And I cannot tell you
what joy, what exultation –
And I write from longing to tell
you what joy, what exultation,
we humans, standing, feel
in this wide and wild abundance,
this wild and wide abandon.
This deep unity, this wide-wild-eyed
seeing into the communion of things.
As a sudden sound is added even to
all this loud crescendo,
like thunder, like jets,
The rise and beating of great wings –
pink footed geese
beyond number, beyond measure,
filling the sky with clouds of
moving birds, spinning fast now into
great skeins that wind over the deep
distance, loud and louder
bright on the dawn,
Bright with the wonder of wings lifting,
Bright in this new, steady,
giddying light.
A light that washes through us all
A light that holds us all
As dawn breaks us wide open.
If you search online, you’ll find some films of the birds, like this one.
I hope this gives you a glimpse of how beautiful a sight it was, and how transformative.
Yesterday evening I had the great privilege of reading this poem to open a series of talks organised by the Woodbridge Climate Action Centre. Local friends, tickets are free, and are going fast. The series is called Regenerating Living Landscapes, Working with Nature.
It is possible that a recording of last night’s event may become available. If it does, I’ll make sure there’s a link to it here.
19th May Note:
As you can see from the list above, tonight is the last talk in the series. Once again I’m delighted to have been asked to read something, and the poem I’m going to read is A Good Place, which is also on this blog. As usual, click through to read it.
Poem: Pigeons in the Blossom – early March
Our wild cherry plum blossom on a sunnier day.
Hello again! Thank you so much for joining me here. I’ve been taking a break from blogging, if not from writing, for a few winter months. But as the days are lengthening and the sap is rising I’m emerging from winter hibernation by the fire.
Yesterday, for #International Women’s Day, I joined some of the wonderful women and men who make our small town such a special place. We’d been invited by Counsellor Caroline Page, who organised the very special gathering despite seriously failing health. There was cake and poetry, an old wind-up gramaphone, and Suffragette colours – a celebration of women who had lived in the town in years gone by as well as those we know and love today. It was full of life and joy and friendship. Many people shared, and I hope to be able to put a link up in time to more details about the poems and stories that we read and heard together.
That morning, I’d been watching the pigeons in the trees in front of our house – a remnant of an ancient hedgerow we’re gradually restoring – and took inspiration from their eagerness and their clatter. So although this is not a poem about women, it’s a poem about life, for all of us I hope, and the awaking of spring. It was my contribution to the feast.
I’m sharing it as part of my inclination to awaken and to clatter, to be hungry for spring and for life. I hope you enjoy it.
Pigeons in the blossom – Early March
Now that the cherry plum
is blossoming – hedgerows
white and frothy,
flowers pale, bark dark –
pigeons come through
the grey sky, clattering as they
land opposite my window,
their collars brighter than
the blossom where they
perch and peck.
Sometimes one, often
more – armfuls – they
balance across the scrubby tree
like vintage decorations,
nodding their blushed heads
hungrily, pecking so many buds.
The top of the tree is almost
stripped bare – no fruit high up then,
no precarious balancing
on shaky ladders
in the summer to come.
Lower, thinner, branches are tested
again and again by fat feasting
pigeons, hungry for rich bitterness.
I feel inclined to join them,
to taste that blossom too.
I know the hunger for spring,
bone-cold and weary as I am.
And I am coming to see their wisdom
as I too feel the urge
to awaken and to clatter,
to feast on life with its bright blossom,
its green buds, again and again.
Pigeons seem to be a bit of a theme. Not the most popular bird, I know, but I do enjoy watching them. I do hope to be an equal opportunities appreciator of nature, and to celebrate all the creatures who share this patch of garden wild.
Here’s a few more poems, if you’d like to read on.
Poem: On Looking Up
This is a poem, in two parts, drawing on my morning practice of yoga in the garden. It’s patchy at this time of year, depending on rain, and sometimes cold, but there are some mornings where you catch a break in the changing weather, and know why this is a good way to begin.
I took no photos at the time, being lost – or found – in the moment, and so I include for you here some other pictures filled with light, and dark, hoping they will fill your eyes with something good. This morning, as I breathed in the light and the air, I was aware of gratitude rising within me, gifted to me. I know that American friends are turning their attention to Thanksgiving at this time of year, and so, even as winter begins its approach, I am reminded to hold on to the practice of gratitude in darkening days.
I wasn’t sure quite where to go with this poem. There were two things – the experience of suddenly becoming aware of the beauty of the sky – and that beauty itself. So I’ve noodled around with it until it sits in two parts. So, this is where it is at the moment.
On looking up
So this is how it was, this morning:
Early, feet bare on cold grass,
I raised my head, stretched my arms,
and as I did so, I remembered
to look up – to open my eyes wide.
I remembered to took up
and breathe in deep and full,
breathe in that cool
morning air, early,
before the smell of
road runs through it.
Or maybe, it was more like this:
Raising my head, stretching
my arms, breathing deep of
the cold clear air,
my mind beginning to
steady and settle,
my eyes opened –
all at once – to the strange
dazzling luminosity of the sky.
And that sight filled me
as surely as the cold air.
For a moment, hands high,
my smile broke open
as wide as my gaze,
open as it was to this sky.
Sky as dizzying,
vertiginous depth, and falling.
Sky, too, as ever-present wonder,
and catching. I do not know
which it was, but I know
that the beauty of it
fills me, nourishes me,
changes me.
And I am thankful.
******
For in looking up, I saw
the sky’s unknowable
dizzying depths,
its many layers, its films
of light moving across each other,
and for a moment I held
a cool breath in wonder,
and in looking, and what felt
like falling.
Highest, or deepest, the moon,
partial and pale, and floating
beyond the crumpled
white-blue linen of high clouds
and new sky. And below,
moving fast across them,
hurried and bright, the rapid
soft pink and orange of clouds
blowing in from the north.
And holding up my gaze
with each deepening breath
I see, below the clouds,
how the dark lines of birds
begin their overflight.
Gulls, risen from their
night-roost on the river,
coming inland to forage
in harrowed field,
overflowing bins,
wherever they find
what they need.
And below them,
the crowd of starlings,
chattering, still holding
a loose shape
of past murmurations,
trailing after from their
hushing reedbeds.
Each layer of sky
lower, closer, faster,
sliding against each
other in wild reckless
beauty as my body fills
with north wind,
lungs as cool as
fresh water on
a summers day.
The morning beginning
at one with these things,
with joy in these things,
with yes to these things,
with thankfulness for
all these daily
wondrous things.
Andrea Skevington 