In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: I – Thou

  • The Death of an Old Man

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    Yesterday, a grand and often very beautiful funeral was held, following the death of a likeable, shrewd and vivid man. It is of course hard to separate the image we are given of Prince Philip, or ourselves put onto him, from the man he actually was. He surely had a similar problem, himself. Who was…

  • How to Speak in Times of Clamour

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    A long time ago, I went away to Greece and spent three months there alone in a hut, facing the rock pictured above. By now, I had lived a youth and much of an adulthood and this was a time for reflection, in case I could make some sense of all that living, never to…

  • A Severed Edge

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    In the rush and flood of falsity and ill-doing that enter and surround our everyday lives, among all the mis-steps and momentous errors born of that rush and that falsity, I keep returning to certain physical landmarks that at least give the appearance of standing firm and of meaning something worth standing for. One such…

  • Across the Way

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    “The Reader” is a national charity. “From its global Shared Reading movement, to its Calderstones Park home in Liverpool… “The Reader” builds lively communities that bring people together and books to life.” And my project “Poems for…the wall” and “The Reader” are exploring ways we might collaborate a bit. In the meantime, one of “The…

  • My Way to You

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    I keep coming upon this poem in its folder, its digital “archive,” and it’s as if I’ve tripped up on it. It somehow sticks out, sitting meekly under “M” in its alphabetical order. But where really does it belong ? I never quite know what to make of it and yet I think it is…

  • I See Everywhere the False

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    I thought this was true in 2014, when it was written. I did not know then that the truth can become truer.… continue reading

  • Counting

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    This poem seems to follow on a bit from the previous one uploaded here. But whereas I wrote “I Insist my Ribs…” over three years ago, “Counting” has been written in the last few days. I have a vague idea of what was in my mind as I wrote this latest poem. And looking at…

  • The True, the Between, the Forming

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    This is the penultimate seclusion song of this series, in which the hyphen between I and Thou has alternated each day with the shadow.… continue reading