Poetry, and ….

Children and Poetry…

Among the poems that will be offered on this “poetry circle” site, I am glad to include those written by pupils in our local schools. ( They will be attributed to the School rather than to named pupils for reasons of privacy. ) There is something vital and lovely about children’s poetry.  After all, who would not give a great deal to have the eyes of a child ?   As we grow older, if we are to remain people of thanksgiving and hope, we need to have the heart of a child within us.

So this time I am going to begin with a simple poem I have written for you about “poetry” itself,   and then we have the first of our “children’s poems.”

-   Alan

Poetry

A poem is….
words weighed;
sounds assayed,
meanings tendered
hearts engaged.

A poem is…
fragments offered
beauty glimpsed
memories treasured
journeys shared.

The Holly Tree

Spiky holly swaying wildly
Like grass in a summers breeze
Dull berries waving quickly
Like a strong wind in the woods
Long branches bending sadly
Like a bluebell stretching for water
Huge bushes shaking nervously
Like a wobbly jelly.

-from Newington C of E Primary School

Autumn breakfast

 

This season, now that wreaths of rose-hips line the bushes,

brings forth a wealth of sparrows, and finches too,

breakfasting with little acrobatic twirls,

noisy and hassling one another from twig to twig.

 

Up aloft on a slender bough

the robin launches forth his silver song,

while on the grassy bank below

two wagtails play, then chase each other

in the lightening sky.

 

Up in the treetops two fierce crows

start up a squawk contest,

while like a final ornate blessing to the scene

floats overhead the gaudy jay.

 

And now the hands of time are moving on,

I must be gone. 

 

Doves 

Doves in the autumn trees

are rocked in the morning breeze,

each one a note on a wooden stave,

silently conversing together.

 

Alan

 

St George at Iwade

From Alan~ please send in some original poems to share; I have a couple of new contributors lined up but it will take a week or two to organise….. send poems to: alankeycol@btinternet.com

In all of our six parishes,  we are marked by the loss of lives in two world wars,   particularly the first world war when so many men from the countryside were called to fight,  never to return home.

The Window to St. George at All Saints Iwade was donated in response to the first world war.

Where did I find a face at once so beautiful and sad ?

Crowned with helm and laurels, compassed round with light ?

You might have thought of notes of triumph here,

vestiges of glory;

You might have sought a martial frown, announcing victory;

but no, nothing… nothing but sadness in those eyes;

Saint George, you come to Iwade to assault our hearts

with knowledge of war as carnage, tragedy and loss,

and only thus you hold before us now your shield,

your banner with your cross.

[ on looking at the window of St. George on the south side of the church, at the west end, a memorial of victory at the end of the first world war. ]

Icon

From Alan~  please send in some original poems to share;  I have a couple of new contributors lined up but it will take a week or two to organise…..  send poems to:
alankeycol@btinternet.com

Meanwhile ….

Our faith is not irrational,  but at the same time goes beyond reason.  But we live in a world where we like to understand and to grasp everything,  and we may be less happy with the uncertain,  the slippery world of symbol and metaphor.  I have grown to appreciate icons, because they convey to us a reality which is not everyday, but from an eternal perspective. ( By that I mean that the subject is portrayed with a sense of the meaning of their existence – and the gift it brings to us -  rather than in a photographic kind of way. )
Similarly,  I like poems -  many of them -  because they are given in sentences which are not
all straightforward and “tied up”;   there is work for us to do,  reading,  reflecting,  and feeling whether we resonate with the spirit or idea of the poem.  I’ve tried to sum this up in this poem :

Poem and icon …
A poem is like an icon;
inexplicit,
requiring delving,
repeated visits,
absence and fresh encounter.

An icon is like a poem,
inexplicit,
requiring delving,
repeated visits,
absence and fresh encounter.

Word and vision taunt us with incompleteness,
The complete is lacking in all subtlety
Yet the incomplete requires courage
to journey to a land unknown;.
Such journeying is to the land of promise,
dreamt of, longed for, but always ahead of us.

Alan

To  illustrate what I mean by the elusive,  symbolic nature of an icon,  see :

www.goarch.org/resources/clipart/saints/beheadedjohn/view

Jane Gransden writes : I think most of us, at some time in our lives, go through ‘the dark night of the soul’. It mostly goes on behind a mask, but I think there will be many people who can identify with it.

One Dark Night  ( November 2010 )

I want to cry, but I don’t know why.

 I want to shout but I can’t get it out.

I can’t feel a thing and that’s not good

because I should!

 And I would if I could.

Too much to bear;

Too much to share;

 Too much to care.

Don’t look! Don’t fear.

 Don’t listen; don’t hear!

 Don’t touch, don’t feel -

 Can it heal? O can it heal?

 Is it real?

Pinch me to keep me awake!

 How long will it take?

 My life is at stake.

 Will I wake and find daybreak?

 Will the sun rise?

 Blue skies? Bright eyes? 

Sleep brings peace – release,

 and frees the mind to find respite.

Night – night!

 Rest, God blessed. 

………………………………………………………………………………….

I must admit to finding some grandiose churches, particular 19th century ones in the neo-classical style, profoundly ugly… but one gave rise to a poem, a church I went into the other day in Annecy, France ( near to Geneva ) – Alan

 Paradox : Notre Dame de Liesse, Annecy

In such an ugly church

where shall I see beauty?

Not in the holy statues, that’s for sure;

perhaps in light refracted

through coloured glass

splashed across columns ?

Yes, but here a greater beauty still :

kneeling by the plain altar in the chancel

this young woman places an array of flowers

and bright berries in a vase, taking time to adjust each,

to summon from the air some sense of beauty,

to make a new harmony out of nature

and with her touch and spirit’s life

transform this place of supernatural ugliness.

                                +              +                +

Flashpoint

London burning! What a sight!
Sparks fly upwards in the night.
Hooded figures, mischief-bent,
Running, dangerous, violent;
Smashing, gashing, looting stores,
Grabbing, stealing, breaking laws;
Young and old, black and white
danced with Anarchy that night.

Things are getting out of hand
in this green and pleasant land.
Shame and blame! But I believe
We all are guilty!  Adam, Eve –
Snatched the apple from the Tree
Ignoring God – and choosing ‘ME’
………………………………………………………………………..
‘If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.’
 (2 Chronicles 7 v 14)

Jane Gransden

Here we are…

Ah we live in a world shot through with sin and failure,
fear and aggression,
turbulent with crises in gestation

How can we hope for the good
when we see so much deceit;
anticipate justice
when the plumb line does not hang straight.

And if we turn to look within,
there too  is dissonance,
an imbalance of forces swaying us about;
no easy ride to harmony.

“Beauty and brokenness,”
I say to myself, and over again ….
No logic to provide a neat solution;
no resolution;
but perhaps a first step to healing;
“beauty and brokenness”

Alan Amos

footnote : in Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Peace prize address,   he began by referring to a brief and enigmatic quote from Dostoevsky : “the world will be saved by beauty”; Solzhenitsyn confesses that the phrase had puzzled and intrigued him for some time. And yet, he told the distinguished audience, he had come to believe that Dostoevsky was right. ~ And I would suggest that beauty is one of the forms in which we see Christ’s presence in the world, for he is the Word through whom all things were made. – Alan