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Slipping Oars


we give her a wave
for the ferry
she slips oars from
the Southwold bank

John
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A Woodland Ensemble - Psithurism of the Trees.

The plane tree With paper-like rustle Elephant patches And scaly trunk. Memories And mellow whispers Of a darkest tempest Dropping the bass. Constable elms Whispering, suckering saplings Converting To beetle runs beneath. Ash- With minstrel keys playing harmonies masking sinister die back. Crataegus thickets The scratchy rasping may catch you quick. Whispering pines Bend forwards Reaching skywards Splintering the silence. Mother beech With spaltered Marks waltzing And humoresque streaks. Holly reigns in Summer solstice Days shorten And poco a poco winter returns. King of the woods Ships hold Forte and Table fast. Eric
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Alder Carr, Crichton

Cold clear water Lurking trout Dogs mercury afloat. Where Crichton Castle Stands the bank. Old Alder cones still black; The trees are still asleep. Willows weep I wash my feet. Moss encrusted veterans fallen to the hillside Amongst blackbirds singing in old ash trees. Wild raspberries Jasper green canes reaching high waiting for summer feathers. Lime kilns and quarried Lonely caves. Sandstone and limestone planes alayered. I walk a mile Through the haar Amongst the dark alder carr. My sandwiches Becoming colder by the minute. I rise up the edges Tottering the line of ancient beech. With broken banks and pocketed anemones. Two muntjac creeping on the sideways track, Watchful of my progress. Manky boots Impress their foot. Bright yellow lichen on old hawthorn,  Jet black ash buds, Grey scaly patches, Lime flower matches. Frothy blackthorn Sloe to emerge, bonnie gill. Magical yet spiny, waiting for its gin. Park primroses clumping their station, Demanding their presence and lithe nat...
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Tang Yellows and Sung Blues

Beneath the dome of autumnal beech amber hues and jasper green tang-yellow leaves. The sung blue-grey sky and speckled shade on the tender crisp-lined track. Egyptian buff-brown Vigorous and stout trunks Lengthening skyward. Stephanie
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Leper Chapel - Mosaics of Time

Mudstone mosaics and jumbled fractures - an uneven puzzle waiting; holy stone with leper marks, dotted and spotted black. Ever expanding lichen rings with double oil-spotted rainbow; angular rust-like stains Testing the presence of time. Clenched into cracks Of weathered rocks and broken messages; scarlet snapdragons trailing their cardinal stems. Damp buttress of moss clinging, Festooning the flint; ink spots, stone measles, proud thistle commanding the base. Random yet structured, closely inter-twined cobwebs Fastened carefully to parched and pocketed stones. Chaotic yet ordered toad-like grotesque within; marking essences of devoted and hidden faces. Picture flints grinning their caramel coffee smiles amongst Anglian crags, embracing their forgotten cousins. Stephanie To see the inspiration for this poem and hear it being narrated at the remains of the Leper Chapel, Dunwich, visit this page from our Chronicles of Greyfriars project website.
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A Light Touch

Like a single pearl on a lupin leaf I sparkle, motionless, waiting for you to discover me. I like to tease a little, tickling bare limbs, making you shiver with delight. I like to be noticed. In summer I slip softly, silently into the bare earth, quenching thirst, satisfying desire. Winter storms excite me, lashing against windows, whipping up seas, splashing in gutters. You can have too much of me, you say. With scarcity I’m a precious jewel. Over-abundance brings disaster. Julia Duke
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Careful Where You Walk

In the nick of time, spring at last emerges almost too late to position itself centre stage. A final twirl, a bow sweeping the footlights taking the limelight laying down its profusion of greens its heady fragrances such signs of life’s abundance all showered at our feet. A few more days and summer casting spring aside will be upon us. Be careful where you walk: a purple orchid plucked just in time from the relentless mower daisies a golden drift of buttercups vivid blue speedwell ox-eyes unfolding as we watch bluebells cowslips the deepest of red clovers plantains holding on to their dainty quivers of white petals and the purple vetch a glorious tangled paradise. Rooks fly upwards circle, settle in the topmost branches of a spreading oak. The horses swish their tails. Soon it will be summer, the first swallows sleek with bright new plumage swooping and snaking above the lake, eager to announce its coming. The little clocktower peals out the music of its chimes telling the quarters but...
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Who Is Saving The World?

The recycler, bicycler, bio-masser and solar paneller, the sustainable developer, the charity worker, the medics (sans frontieres?), fundraisers and carers, givers and listeners, growers of organics, designers of biodegradables. Genetic engineers? Surgeons and researchers, forgivers and forgetters, Billy the bug hunter, Immy the mathematician, Troy the paratriathelete, Wendy the wigwam maker. The ones who go last, the ones who smile, the ones who don’t want to argue about it, the ones who give up their seat, the ones who calm a storm, the ones who cook up a feast, the ones who sing praises, the ones who shine, Auntie Gwen and Malala…… ….and I drink water from a glass bottle. Sue Foster Image by Fernando via Unsplash .
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The Pandemic

Unprecedented Unprecedented Unprecedented Present distress repeated, repeated recent disease breathed present unprecedented, sent in coughs. Cough, cough, cough. This disease sent on the air. Cough, cough, cough. Unprecedented present breathed in unprecedented disease breathed out unprecedented hand-washing unprecedented deaths dent the present. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe out. Dented breathing. Cough. Present deaths unprecedented. Enough. Too many deaths. Too many people. Too many families. This time Covid19. Another SARS disease present. Unprecedented but not unexpected 2020. Sue  Foster
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Very Important Invitation

V VULVA! Did I capture your attention? E Each of us have our own experiences, relevance, compliments & complaints to mention R Race, religion, gender – cervical screening has little constraints it’s about prevention and Y You are in control. I Investment in your health, time to talk, education about look & feel M More talking about our bodies, knowing the facts and questions we have all tried to conceal P Putting it frankly, simply and laid bare O Out in the open and then you find yourself sat in the chair R Red rosy cheeks, being asked about your periods, dryness, sex, safety and infections T That’s an odd question A And did the nurse forget to mention? N Not only do we want to do your cervical screening but we want to check your safe at home too T That’s the aim of our holistic game. I Invest in your time to learn, to read, to look after what you need N Now if you ARE in need we can promise you one thing can be guaranteed V Very Important Invitation will be here to advocate,...
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Oak Meadow

B anished by force are warmth and sunlight Where we scratch and hack in the undergrowth. Nature’s front line is well entrenched here, In-grown and wiry with brambles and brash. Ages running wild, seeding and shooting At will, snagging, choking and smothering Have toughened her. In self-strangling struggle She scrabbles and claws her resistance – A tortuous mesh of trip-lines, barbs for skin And slips for boots in the mush underfoot. Old, alone and confused, like a geriatric tramp She bristles in layers of shredded sacking. Let’s tease out her bits, put to the burning Barrow-loads of combings; rake up the mess On her breast, sticky with burrs and briars; Open her up to the sun, re-stitch her Seams in woven hedgerows, with patches of Flowers fight back the years. Waken Beauty, Give bees and butterflies her face to love And we too will grow young with the work. Julian Case
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