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She used to love the springtime. Days lengthened, the warmed earth gave life. The sun seems less warm this year. An undercurrent of pain flows through the hours. Surface pleasures serve only as distractions from the hollowness within. Each joy shared other years strikes sharp, and hard as the season wakens dormant thoughts of all […]
You are Peace amid my storms, sheltering arms in which to hide. (x2) Raging fears that crash and roar, hammer on me, bruised and sore; flooding round me, dark and cold – without You, I’ll lose my hold… You are Peace amid my storms, sheltering arms in which to hide. (x2) Weak and weary, still […]
The gift of Christmas says to us: God Himself now shows the way and we are not forgotten. This Baby, born in a trampled hour came as one Who knows our pain to show us what it means to live, and speak His freedom to our chains. But within our scurried lives we dare to […]
I was in pieces fragmented by repeated loss, each blow hard upon the last. You appeared like fog – an illusion of substance that seeped among my splinters, obscured the far horizon and rocks on the near shore. I nearly lost my landmarks and smashed aground as the fog slipped away. — Christine Rigden
As years pass and days shrink, activity multiplies. Each season sifts its own joys and rhythms yet moments to pray elude. A rare space opens, frays and fragments and hours are lost before I’ve noticed what might have been. Winter – life slows down and time pulls long evenings round its shoulders, draws up the […]
Classy like frayed trainers in unrelenting January drizzle, All Saints Square is slick; dead leaves lie limp in corners. Conifers drape the waterfall amid stone shelves and naked acers, the curve of alms-houses stately through the lattice of branches. The sky is a drab veil behind the listless winter market. Stall-holders huddle mugs over cabbages […]
Why should I change my routine, the life that I enjoy? Why should I share a lift to work, or skip Algarve this year? I want summer clothes in winter, my gadgets on all night. If I want green beans in April, who are you to point? The children must have lots of toys, it’s […]
I enjoy putting some of my poems with pictures. Here are a few, no doubt more will be added from time to time. I will credit other people’s photos where I can, but some I bought years ago and can’t find the information. Enjoy your browse!
Poetry being what it is, the poems I write may have more than one layer of meaning, and may be about me or about people I have listened to or invented. Like most people I did some writing at school, but got most interested again in my 20s when I started journaling and also using poems […]
The day dawned beneath frigid skies in what counts for normal now. My friend stops for coffee stays for lunch. I call to my daughter to buy bread – she comes for some change, and goes. We talk of scarcity and recipes not minding the clock, sirens an accustomed distant background A rap at the […]
