Notre Dame

Posted: April 16, 2019 | Author: themarcistagenda | Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Like so many people, across the world, I was shocked and saddened by the images of this famous and beautiful building being consumed by flames. Forest fires can cleanse and purge, regenerate. Maybe President Macron’s pledge to rebuild will materialise. I hope so. But the building is so much more than that. It is a collection of memories, stories, hopes and fears, intrigues, plots, births, marriages, deaths and funerals. For many, a house of God, for some, a box ticked in the tourism guide, and for all, a centre for humanity. So this, in memoriam….

The building falls

Enflamed at the last,

The spire, hunch backed, then broken.

The world exhales,

A collective gasp,

A sob, a tear,

The siren shriek.

A fiery breath roars skywards.

What’s gone from here?

An icon, yes.

A feature, a show,

Somewhere for hordes of tourist to go,

The chatter, clatter, camera whirl,

Babble, rabble, rainbow guided swirl,

Notre Dame, an oasis perhaps, in this,

Our restless, curious, irreverent world.

(Believers came here too. Who knew?)

More than this though,

Sparks stumbling the night sky,

And thus, atomised

Learning to fly :

Dreams

Schemes

Prayers

Hymns

Joys

Fears

The hatched

The matched

The despatched

The church embattled

Across the years.

As the structure breathes its last

The symbol sighs

The crowds groan, moan, mourn this troubling

Devastating

Demise.

Aloft, the smoke belching

Sated, abated,

Fire fuelled repast

The bell no longer tolls.

The silence is that of the bombed out building,

The ghetto razed,

History, erased.

Adieu sublime,

Au revoir, divine.

The cost?

Our mutual loss?

Farewell,

Forlorn,

Adrift,

Yearning, burning,

Ash stricken.

The whispering echoes of time.

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Hummingbirds

Posted: March 28, 2019 | Author: themarcistagenda | Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The hummingbirds are back

And all is well

They flew across the Atlantic with us

Years ago

They’d sprung from besides the Grand Canyon

They saw us through Bryce, Zion, Salt Lake City

Snow

Sunshine

They didn’t know

They travelled in a suitcase

Benign.

Months later we flagged them up

And they’ve floated serene

Meantimes

Above the Bay, spinning soundlessly

Morfa, Dinas Headed,

That’s where they’ve been.

Lately

We’ve been all at sea

Whilst they, dust dogged and long winter bedraggled

Were caught up in decorators detritus

Rested

Neglected and unseen.

Yesterday

Refreshed, rejuvenated,

Indifferent to all the noise and chatter of this troubled globe

We reinstated our duly mobile birds

Fee flowing silhouette

Shaded

Then sun burst on

Our newly pristine wall

As the chaos continues

The world may yet fall

But the hummingbirds are back

And

Just now

Our slice of the picture sits well

And that’s all.

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Happy Christmas

Posted: December 19, 2018 | Author: themarcistagenda | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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Betty, elemental – for Roger, Emma and family.

Posted: December 17, 2018 | Author: themarcistagenda | Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments

A good friend of ours, Betty Hill, died recently. We went to her funeral service (as the Easterly wind snapped and bit its way into West Wales)  and the following quote, which she had chosen, was shared :

‘Total annihilation is impossible.We are the prisoners of an infinity without outlet, wherein nothing perishes, wherein everything is dispersed, but nothing lost.Neither a body nor a thought can drop out of the universe, out of time and space. Not an atom of our flesh, not a quiver of our nerves, will go where they cease to be, for there is no place where anything ceases to be. The brightness of a star extinguished millions of years ago still wanders in the ether where our eyes will perhaps behold it this very night, pursuing its endless road. it is the same with all that we see, as with all that we do not see.’ Maurice Maeterlinck.1912.   

Betty was gracious, elegant, interesting and interested. She reminded me very much of my grandmother. I wish I had known her better and for longer. 

This poem is for her, as I imagine her now…

Betty, elemental.

I am a mote of dust, blown in from Saharan sands

A snap of Jack Frost, chilling the way.

A speck of smoke from a long ago liner.

A swallow, skyline skimming, swooping,  above Kings Terrace

The bell in the cry of an oyster catcher, keening across Newport Bay

A ripple, as a seal explores Nevern estuary.

I am a hint of perfume, dripping from Skomer bluebells,

A flare of sunset, exploding across Dinas Head

A blade of grass in Llanychaer.

A hint of morning mist as the Berry Hill cows call.

A note in the minutes of the W.I.

I am a snowflake, falling in Edmonton.

A smudge of ink in a secretarial ledger. 

I am a piece of clay, fired in ceramic.

I am bold colour, and medieval motif. 

I am the turned up corner of a smile on my grandchildren’s faces

A hair on the lion’s head of my son in law

A stroke of paint on Roger’s palette. 

And I am

A breath of wind in my daughter’s face, as she gazes westwards.

I am grace sublime, 

Sun and star kissed

Pain dismissed, 

The silent voice of calm

Of love, care and kindness

Aswim in the universe

Sorrows shadowed,

Goodbye distress.

Fundamental.

I am Betty,

elemental. 

 

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The Bunuel Martini

Posted: November 16, 2018 | Author: themarcistagenda | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I had the pleasure and privilege recently of meeting up with Stewart Bartlam, a long standing friend of Helen Carey. Stewart and I have got to know each other well, in the virtual world, and I have become a great admirer of his poems.

And now he has released a book, ‘The Bunuel Martini’. And we have got a copy. And I can unreservedly say that there are some very fine poems within.

I/you/we can buy it from Amazon or order it in book stores. 

And Stewart can be found at http://stewartstanzas.wordpress.com

Please do try his poetry – I feel sure that you will like it. A lovely man, an excellent writer.

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