Winter into spring

I have lost some very precious people over the last decade.

In August 2010, my birth mother died from cancer.

In April 2012, my dear friend and long-time housemate, Christine, died from cancer.

In January 2014, my beloved adoptive father died in his nursing home.

In December 2014, my beloved colleague Penny died of cancer at the mere age of 44.

In February 2019, my dear adoptive mother died in her care home.

I have often written the poems I’m most fond of at times of great emotion or stress. Today I offer the poem I wrote on the day of Penny’s funeral:

Dancer

My friend was laid in earth today
borne kindly in a wicker coffin
on which her loved ones dropped soft tears
like snowflakes falling,
silvery tint of birdsong in the naked trees
a hint of spring.

Her wealth of auburn hair
was vibrant flame.
Her gentle music stilled,
we listen now to silence.

A cage of bones
cannot contain
all a person was, or is.
Composed of light
I cannot see,
her spirit dances free.


I also offer another poem, one I wrote nearly forty years ago, and which – to my long-ago surprise – was commended in a 1997 competition run by the Fellowship of Christian Writers (as ACW was called back then).

December’s Children

We’re both December’s children.
Tension frosts our
bowl of space
and snow-lit silence
plugs the wood.

Listen: muffling snow has
sudden movement, barely sensed.
The ivory glow is not so hard
so listen:
I can hear your heartbeat still,
unspoken words unbroken still,
breathing beneath the snow.

I believe in eventual thaws.
This rigid ice will shatter.
And I don’t want to fragment you,
I’ll listen deep, tread soft,
be still …

I’m listening. I’m here.
Strong spring, I know,
pulsates beneath the snow.



That poem was written for someone who wasn’t ever meant to read it. Sadly, I have outlived him too.

Writing has many layers to it. Maybe I sense the voice of the Spirit here, saying to all of us that God is listening, he is here, that life pulsates and breathes beneath the snow, beneath our frozen emotions, beneath everything that locks us up and prevents us from becoming the people God would have us be.

We can write it out. God has given us the freedom to write our doubts and perplexity, our grief and our pain … and our hope. Hope in the light that is stronger than winter darkness.

Lent begins soon. As we mourn for the ones we have lost, indeed for everything that has been lost in this pandemic, we look towards the spring.

May God thaw the frozen words within us.

May his Spirit free all the frozen emotions within us.

Christ has come, to turn our winters into spring.

I work full time as an administrator for the United Reformed Church in their central London office, although am working from home for the time being. I’m also a lay minister. I wrote a devotional for the anthology ‘Light for the Writer’s Soul’, published by Media Associates International, and my short story ‘Magnificat’ appears in the ACW Christmas Anthology Merry Christmas Everyone.