Windsor Team Ministry

Pause for a poem in November

 

November – the month when we are reminded to remember those killed in wars. It is too easy to think “but that was all a long time ago” – of course unfortunately that is not so as men and women are still dying in conflicts not of their own choosing. It is important therefore to remember the human cost of war and to give thanks for the lives of those who have died. That is not of course to glorify war, but it is a paradox that it is the fighting of wars that gives rise to the love of peace. This then is the subject of the poem for – November.  

 

Peace and War

People always make war when they say they love peace.

The loud love of peace makes one quiver more than any battle-cry.

Why should one love peace? it is so obviously vile to make war.

Loud peace propaganda makes war seem imminent.

It is a form of war, even, self-assertion and being wise for other people.

Let people be wise for themselves. And anyhow nobody can be wise except on rare

occasions, like getting married or dying.

It’s bad taste to be wise all the time, like being at a perpetual funeral.For everyday

use, give me somebody whimsical, with not too much purpose in life, then we

shan’t have war, and we needn’t talk about peace.

D H Lawrence (1885-1930)

 

Poem for October - chosen by Michael Bailey

As our damp, cool, cloudy summer turns to autumn the leaves on the trees begin to turn to colour.  G K Chesterton’s poem, “Gold Leaves” then seems appropriate.  The poem draws a parallel between the aging of the year (as indicated by the golden leaves) and the aging of man.

Gold Leaves

Lo! I am come to autumn,

When all the leaves are gold;

Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out

The year and I are old.

 

In youth I sought the prince of men,

Captain in cosmic wars,

Our Titan, even the weeds would show

Defiant, to the stars.

 

But now a great thing in the street

Seems any human nod,

Where shift in strange democracy

The million masks of God.

 

In youth I sought the golden flower

Hidden in the wood or wold,

But I am come to autumn,

When all the leaves are gold.

 G K Chesterton (1874-1936)

 

Poem of the month for August

Our poem this month was contributed by Madeleine Fitzgerald, one of the two young ladies who recently volunteered to help with Chatterbox Corner. Madeleine said that she liked the poem for the picture it gave of the quiet unrestricted life of a wild deer.                                           

Deer

Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer.

They are spirits of wild sense. Nobody near

Comes upon their pastures. There a life they live,

Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive,

Treading as in jungles free leopards do,

Printless as eyelight, instant as dew.

The great kine are patient, and home-coming sheep

Know our bidding. The fallow deer keep

Delicate and far their counsels wild,

Never to be folded reconciled

To the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are;

Lightfoot, and swift, and unfamiliar,

These you may not hinder, unconfined

Beautiful flocks of the mind.

John Drinkwater (1882-1937)

Mary's poem of the month

This month the Rev. Mary Barnes has chosen a poem by the American lyrical poet, Sara Teasdale. She writes of the beauty of nature seen through an open window, but from the point of view of a person whose illness means she cannot share its joys – perhaps she was reflecting on the fact that throughout her life, she suffered poor  health.

Open window                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Out of the window a sea of green trees

Lift their soft boughs like the arms of a dancer;

They beckon and call me, “Come out in the sun!”

But I cannot answer.

I am alone with Weakness and Pain,

Sick abed and June is going,

I cannot keep her, she hurries by

With the silver-green of her garments blowing.

Men and women pass in the street

Glad of the shining sapphire weather;

But we know more of it than they,

Pain and I together.

They are the runners in the sun,

Breathless and blinded by the race,

But we are watchers in the shade

Who speak with Wonder face to face.

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933)

Weathers

This month we have a new contributor – Peter Lloyd. This was good to see as we need a fresh viewpoint from time to time to give variety to our poems, so if you’ve a poem you’ d like us to see (so long as it is out of copyright) just let Michael Bailey or Keith Davies know.
Peter Lloyd has chosen Thomas Hardy’s “Weathers”. Though it was written many decades ago it seems to sum up the weather this spring and summer pretty well – a pleasant spring, followed by a dripping wet summer!

John the Baptist

Stern prophet, desert-dweller, wrapped in ragged coat,
Harsh challenger of eager crowd, so they
Humbly attentive to that warning note
In Jordan’s water washed their sins away;
Now comes One of whom John cries
‘Greater he than I!’. Dove-like the Spirit falls
With swoop upon Him. Open stand the skies.
‘My Son, belov’d,’ a voice from heaven calls.
Holding a baby by the font I stand,
The water’s warmed, no need for him to cry.
Friends, family stand fondly, proudly by,
Best clothes, bright smiles, cameras in their hand.
John Baptist, this the work you have begun.
Do you acknowledge what we here have done?

Jeremy Hurst