Girls came and sparked in bosomy doubt; In those days I was the friend, The one who had to talk about A shooting-match, if ever had. For twenty whole years I took out Friend like faces, I rose but had not her.
Over ten years ago I met love. She was in rehearsal, unknown was I. Two in four hundred, like two gloves, And letters wrote where numerous charms learnt I worked off my selfish snaps. And in her laugh I met my end. Agreement twice that parting, bored, I twice got a ring and easily rose To be well thought of and, after, to believe.
Written using the words of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Wild Oats‘ on 28th January 2020.
That I may be holy, good and full of peace, I pray my heart and mind might be one. That the unending onslaught and storm may cease And compulsions to success might be gone. I offer the landscape of my inner soul To Him who comes to me and yet is my goal.
O God, make speed to save me from fear. Make haste, O Lord, to help my troubled heart Which with the world’s distortions and sin adheres. Teach me afresh your ways of peace and art My pattern’d design and my evening prayer. May mercy fall and lift me in your care.
“See the Lord is doing something new.” But not until we’ve returned to him To the desert where we first fell in love. There, in the wilderness, we must prepare, Not in city success or in comfy town, In exile, abandoned, we must prepare. Prepare and not receive. Wait. Painful and distraught. Wait. The slogans of hope will be just words. The songs of harvest, wishful ditties.
“Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight the crooked paths.” My heart is crooked by trauma, Triggered by an unconscious past. Before the new I must clear the old Unhelpful ways and wait. We do so together or we suffer alone, Exile made execution by excuses we make. Gather up the harps and silence the drums, Prepare ye the way. The Lord, he comes.
There comes a time in all creative act, When surface impulse, having once been loud And filled with words the page that once had lacked, Returns to silence and lays like a shroud Over mind and heart once so free and proud. Now my faculties sit, weak and fearful, And I am left confused, lost and tearful Attempting to extract a buried truth That may, at last, free me to be cheerful. And so I must replay my clouded youth.
Dear Future Self, I’m sorry to impinge On whatever it is your doing. I know it’s not helpful To communicate with me But I so desperately needed to talk. I have some questions Of which Past Self is of no use. (He is, if I am being candid, Driving me to distraction!) Are people right when they kindly state Things will get easier? When will the change emerge And I am born anew Into a new life with less sadness, More joy? What is the point of all of this Which so painfully placates? Where are you? Can I have directions? Can I visit, just for a day? I must apologise for the stress, It must have lost you some friends. I think it is for the best But I have been wrong before, As Past Self continues to remind me, What a bore. I keep telling him to quieten down And to hold onto her. He is so lucky to have her And to still be with her vibrancy. I am not worth his time In light of her presence. He does not fully understand. You may have someone too. I hope so. I should not disturb you For I probably won’t understand And I too have gifts and, who knows, Maybe they are enough to hold me In my frustration and my grief. There is, of course, Him In all his magnificence Who tells me not to write; To speak with Him and Him alone And leave you well alone. Forget I wrote, I was misled, Yours sincerely, Ned.
There’s a well trod path, that we all walk During our ageing and our emerging times. We walk at different paces, some slow, Some deliberate; still faster still some other As they seek the end of this unending path. There is detritus strewn along the way Telling stories of past travels or waypoints Of journeys not seen as destination. Careless crisp packets, plastic, politically charged, All discarded solicitously, privately in public. This is here and yet everywhere in England.
Eliot describes another place, another journey and another space: Little Gidding is a moment captured, An unobtrusive point not enraptured By projected poetics but rather by Metered phrase that catch the eye And draw us to observe Something shared to be conserved A common condition of human life That gives shape and direction to our strife.
We meet along the way, heading in direction different, A cross point where divergence touch for a moment, We meet in an awkward gaze and judgement made, To speak and share or in silence part, We generously nod and a pang of what could have been Transports through my veins and I am undone. I know she felt the same but sinful condition Hindered us from turning back to make amends, A relationship that would feed our journeys still. Maybe we’ll meet in another time, another point And reverse the regret at what still could be.
I’m left with Eliot still wrestling With endings and beginnings. “We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.”
I watch you for patterns, And those repeated turns of phrase Speak to me of your ways. You reveal in a gaze your thoughts, How your reason contorts And fear and need consorts with doubt. Then do I know about All the tales you spout, a mask, Slipped slightly, I must ask, Or choose the safer task to look And read you like a book That I tenderly took and held In hopeful hands, propelled Into your world, compelled to know Where next your thoughts will go. I stop. I love and so return.
Robust and wild lays the land, From rugged peaks to concrete towns. Industrious the people with hardened masks, Sweating and toiling to make things last.
Life is a crucible with pressure and heat, Tough the result, molten their core. Dwarfish this people, loyal and true, Once they possess they always have you.
It may seem we say just what we like With no thought or preparation; No structure, shape or foresight, Just freedom in all its dazzling gift Flowing in steady cascades with no restriction Or constraint or discernment to stop From saying, or doing that first idea Because there’s no such thing as wrong.
Breathless we’d be. Dead or tired, at least. It is more considered than that. We are attentive, our listening increased. Generous with time in safe format. Serving at a shared feast. ‘I’ becomes ‘we’.
