edges

You will find us on the periphery
In the land of the mapless unknown
You will find us at the edges
Where the wild things grow
You will find us in the liminal space
Where no one knows what to expect
You will find us where the sea meets the shore
And no one knows what will wash up next

You will find us among the hedgerows
Gathering what delights are growing there
You will find us with the bees and butterflies
Connecting over here with over with there

You will find us on ours knees
With the beetles and the ants
Living all together
Without a lot of thanks
For our humble jumbled life
And our muddy handed style
But we would invite you
To come a stay a while
In the land where the wild things are
And the place where the periphery reigns
You may learn things here that serve you
When you return to your pathed way.

Blog Post https://footnotesonlife.co.uk/2020/03/28/edges/

more like a bird

In these days
I would like to be less like a robot and more like a bird
Less programmed and preset
And more like a bird
Less predictable and engineered
And more like a bird
Less manmade and manufactured
And more like a bird
Less rigid and inflexible
And more like a bird
For birds are intuitive and birds rise and rest
With the sun and the stars and their homely nest
And they plan very little 
and change course as they please

Birds are nature-born, 
gentle
fluid
and free
And they flock together 
and take flight on the wind

They soar and they settle with spell binding ease
And they sing over and over
Come with me, come with me, 
to dance in the breeze.

Blog Post https://footnotesonlife.co.uk/2020/04/07/air/

the rage

The Rage burns
It may be able to turn
Something deep within
A stuck something
A presumed something
A complacent something.

The Rage is full
Of grief and anger
and wild hope
and desperate longing
The Rage is here
Is to be welcomed
Is just as valid and valuable
as sadness 
or joy 
or peace

The Rage belongs here
at this time
In the world
In our lives
In our hearts.
If it ever visits you
do not be afraid of it
It may be here to break open something
which cannot go unspoken.

Blog Post https://footnotesonlife.co.uk/2020/04/22/the-rage/

Hush

The silence that dwells within
may be the loudest silence of them all.
The tummy, 
the chest, 
the heart
always engaging in their necessary rhythms,
energising, 
breathing, 
beating.

That space next to me,
Just outside of me
But that is kind of still, me,
Because to for you to be in it
I have to have welcomed you in.
That safety zone
Where, if we wish to connect with another
we need to cross this quietly held
extension of ourselves.

The global hush
The temperate skies
The empty roads
And green traffic lights.
The machines have ceased
And so our global quiet grows
Turns out it was there all along
A little stifled in places,
In others it has been ever thus.

This silence has always been,
It was at the beginning,
It is here now, 
holding us from beneath, 
like arms
And it will be there too, 
waiting
at the end of all things.

Blog Post https://footnotesonlife.co.uk/2020/05/03/different-kinds-of-quiet/

shapes

The shapes we thought we knew
cannot hold us anymore
The lines too straight
angles too pointy
squares too boxy
We must draw circles instead
spheres of endless possibility

Blog Post https://footnotesonlife.co.uk/2020/05/13/the-shapes-we-thought-we-knew/

begin again

Tomorrow we will begin again,
New dew will form 
at the break of dawn
on grass that is 
ever so slightly taller
The first light will waken anew,
lifting open an awestruck eye
to the beauty it beholds
And the earth will be new, again

Our bodies being healed 
and restored
as we slept,
will stir us into wakefulness
We will breathe our first breath
into the opening of the day
And we will be new, again

Our souls will remember
that we are damaged,
precious
and not alone
We may come to accept
that wholeness arrives
not with resolution and fanfare
But with hearts humble enough
to forever begin
And all will be new again, tomorrow.

Blog Post https://footnotesonlife.co.uk/2020/05/24/begin-again/

The snail

Notice the snail,
her patterned back,
her identity 
which grows with her.
That she cannot take off
for wherever she goes 
there she is. 

Her home, 
her shell is her.
All swirls and colours. 
Little by little 
she travels far. 
Feeling her way, 
unable to see much at all.
Retreating into herself 
at the threat of danger. 
Then inching onwards, 
carrying all she has become, unquestionably, 
unashamedly, 
wherever she may go. 

And in the end 
we remember her, 
by her shiny, meandering trails 
and the legacy of her patterned,
beautiful, 
now uninhabited, shell. 

Blog Post https://footnotesonlife.co.uk/2020/07/04/there-she-goes/

has the tide heard of the moon?

Is the tide aware of its' own movement in and out?
Does it remember every shore it has covered before?
Or does it always discover the shore anew? 
Does the tide know, as it crashes and furls 
That it follows a pattern greater than its' own ebb and flow? 

Has the tide heard of the moon?
This far away pull that daily shifts the time and reach
Of the otherwise dependable, predictable tide? 
Has the tide ever noticed in the dark of the night
a shimmering silver light 
casting a path over its' waves 

The reflection of the face of her distant cousin
on which so much depends, 
though the tide is unaware. 

Blog Post https://footnotesonlife.co.uk/2020/07/18/walk-out-of-the-photograph/