RSS

Tag Archives: Medical Aid for Palestinians

ShelterBox, Swans and Alan Brownjohn

A representative from ShelterBox came to choir today to collect the money we raised from our gigs over 2023. It is always moving to be brought up to date with their activities. They are working with MAP to get help into Gaza. Thanks to Mandy for the photo.

The tide was in this morning as we were rehearsing and the swans are back. I loved the contrast of the white swan and the colourful reflections in the water.

The poet, novelist and humanist, Alan Brownjohn, died last week so I thought I would share one of his poems,
The Director, with you. The format of the poem is four line stanzas but for some, irritating, reason, WordPress chooses to squash them all together. I hope this doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of this poem.

We get bored, we get restless. We feel there is more

Than merely existing – eating and drinking and dying,

The daily, the trivial round. We feel we must matter,

That somehow or other our presence in the world must count.

And then there are those with this urgent need for self-

Expression, the wish to put something out into the world,

To put down, for the record, what it was like to be them,

To be this self and no other and alive at this time.

Some find a medium, a skill with words, paint or stone,

(Though often enough they seem to mistake their need

To make for a gift to make something) while others remain

Frustrated, and find destructive ways of expression.

These are the difficult ones, the ones who can’t see

A possible pattern to things, order in all the disorder,

The sense of a journey, with somewhere, perhaps, to arrive,

The end, or the goal, which might justify it all.

So what can be done? It is tempting to preach and advise,

And point to the ways that others have found and followed,

The patterns which worked for them, the things which helped them through,

But that, of course, is exactly what they want to avoid.

So there really is nothing for it but kindness and patience.

Hoping, as always, that time will work its wonders,

That growing older may bring a kind of peace,

A slow-dawning recognition that things happen and pass.