February Rain

February rain - 2014

I like the soft rain that gently bathes 

my tired skin with liquid silk.

I like the full blown lazy rain softly emptying

its wide spaced drops into the pool

where six humped golden orfe wheel and play, 

timid tadpoles hide amongst the reeds

and pale water lilies shimmer in the gentle shower.

I like the tough regimented squalls that beat

a brisk reveille on rusting tin roofs

of old allotment huts, summoning their owners away

to the comfort of the pub and their noon day pint.

I like the anxious hurrying rain

sweeping undeterred across the high moor, 

flattening the purple heather into a deep carpet,

replenishing warm languorous streams

who sing through the summer 

in an unique rustic chorus with the the watery trill    

of the chic white and black ring ouzel,

and the elegant grey merlin’s imperious screech.

I like the fine mizzle and the silent mists of October

that caress the Fluted White camellia, 

cloak with liquid lace the purple Autumn crocus

and weave a glistening crown around a dark red rose.

But … 

The meandering Jet Stream has plunged deep south, 

and sharply swung north again, like a great cosmic ribbon

swirling madly above the ocean, bundling together

unending storms of bitter rain and cruel gales.

Today’s icy downpour stings skin and eyes,

scythes through the sunshine gold japonica,

shatters the simple beauty of the gentle hellebore,

and pulps the last head of the blue hydrangea.

It brings flood and devastation to land and coast,

houses inundated, winter crops laid waste,

pastures six feet under water, stock drowned.

As rivers undredged burst through their crumbling banks

and old sea walls are swept away by wind and tide, 

power lines fall victims to unremitting storms,

and thousands endure long cold and cheerless days.

While politicians and public servants wrangle,

men and women count the terrible cost

of homes destroyed, livelihoods and lives 

lost to the inevitable coming of this

festival of unholy ruin.

And I begin to see how powerless 

we have become in the face of this, our world’s chaos 

which we ourselves have done so much to cause.

May God and our children forgive us.

Naomi

Where now is the glory?

Kent 2014 - Where now is the glory?    

There is a green place high on the cliff above 

the menacing Goodwins and the sheltering Downs,

a log cabined park, clipped and trim,

but which has still the wild touch

as pale green wild liquorice spreads around

the gardener’s stately hollyhock,

while pungent wild garlic and narrow leaves

of meadow sage line the banks

of a stream which sings softly as it meanders

relaxed through the quiet wood.

There is a copse near the wood’s edge,

which encloses a ragged circle of bright space 

where the morning sun gilds a clump

of late primroses and bathes the flowers

of the tall cow parsley with a dappled radiance.

In the centre of this oasis of light grows

a spear thistle, three feet high, elegant 

in its new budding touched with Tyrian purple 

and long leaves tipped with vicious spines,

a formidable green emperor preparing for war.

Along these same quiet coastal paths, in these same woods

 a hundred years ago through the hot summer of 1914 

came men to survey, to plan, to dig, to build.

Where now the wild liquorice grows, 

are mounds and hollows, slabs of dressed stone.

Was there here a shelter, a trench, 

an emplacement for a gun?

Did the gallant men of the 6th Cyclist Battalion

with rifles and ammunition slung across their backs

patrol these sweet green places?

Stand today beside the handsome barbed warrior, 

turn to the North and let your imagination

listen to the stuttering rattle of a rotary engine,

a limping Sopwith Camel coming into land.

Turn to the South and feel through every part of you

the unceasing shudder of the guns 

merciless bombardment of the green fields 

of France, where the bloodstained earth  turns red, 

and the land itself cries out ‘Here is no glory,

 these are the Plains of Death.’

From the corners of the world they came 

and from this village too, among them

boys too young and men too old to contend 

with the pain, the loss, the mud and the over arching fear. 

In the trenches there was courage and a bleak humour,

compassion and care for the wounded and the weak,

but in No Man’s Land men abandoned, crucified

on the wire, screamed throughout the night,

and in the grey morning dead eyes 

silently yearned for the green fields of Kent. 

Little was gained from four bitter years of battle,

seven million civilians and ten million fighting men died,

twenty million wounded took home little but their wounds.

Widows made destitute pawned their wedding rings 

while crippled soldiers begged in our city streets, 

and the sad hungry orphans of Germany

wept for fathers never returned.

What is there now to celebrate when both victim

and victor were the casualties of this war,

except perhaps its eventual ending?

Very little to glorify, but much to remember,

to respect, to regret, and to learn.