There’s a beauty in the pale, transcendent moon,
That science on its own cannot explain,
And as the eye perceives the wondrous light,
And then informs the weary, working brain,
Somewhere within a sense of awe and joy
Bursts forth, defying reason’s icy cold
Appraisal, so as the city starts to wake
A lingering sense of hope the soul enfolds.
18 Oct 24
A sleepy day in Budleigh Salterton –
Beneath the azure sky, with paper layers
Of fragile cloud, a postcard seaside scene;
Sun worshippers sprawled out in stripy chairs,
And joyful toddlers heaping stone on stone,
And teenage sweethearts sharing fish and chips,
And slowly shuffling with their walking sticks,
Old friends with many memories on their lips,
And while you brave the tranquil, chilly sea
My eye is drawn towards the small white yacht
That sails along the edge of what is seen,
And as it fades from sight I wonder what
May lie beyond the boundary of my view,
And if my course is somewhere known or new.
18 Aug 24
I miss the slow engagement with the word,
And physical embodiment of text,
The days when all along the shelves I’d search
To find the end and object of my quest
And then at last within my hand to hold
That precious world of freshly printed ink,
Beyond whose cover I’d discover a cast
Of friends – and sometimes foes – who feel and think
In such a way to touch my soul within,
And in the turning of each fresh, crisp page,
I’d eagerly pursue their every move
To gain a vision of that wider stage,
On which we all are called to act our part.
The text is pixilated now, to browse
Is simply with a mouse scroll up or down,
And words endure but for the here and now.
What if we learnt to read and read again,
To savour every carefully crafted phrase?
To cultivate within each humble heart
A sense of wonder, an openness to grace?
29 Jun 24
The phone box has been removed from the end of our street
For years it stood unloved, unused, a place
Perhaps to smoke a joint, or etch your name
Upon the smeary panes of splintered glass
And advertise for brief, illicit fame.
But once there would have been long queues outside
As starstruck sweethearts planned their special date,
Or someone rang the council to complain,
Or giggling schoolgirls pranked their hapless mate.
Thus a thousand conversations flowed,
A stream of prose within graffiti’d walls,
That grows and grows until the coins run out,
Or else the operator ends the call.
And all the while the jilted lover waits
Just to hear this phone box ring. But that is past,
Long past, marked only by a plot of earth,
Soon to be lost amid the uncut grass.
At last the flooding rains have ceased, and with
The dawn of May the long awaited sun
Breaks forth upon the cemetery path
All muddy where the storm-fed streams still run
(Despite the council flood prevention scheme)
Where toddlers love to splash without a care
And long-haired dogs rush in to roll and play,
And yet my gaze is focused quite elsewhere.
For just beyond the cracked and crooked wall
There is a far more gentle, peaceful scene –
A sea of vibrant bluebells breaking on
A weathered headstone, by the years washed clean,
And there a lively robin starts to sing,
To greet the long-delayed, much-needed spring.
The lyrics to the song are in the comments. Enjoy and share!
The cold November deluge hit Adam in the face as soon as he came out of the courtroom. Usually he would have checked the weather forecast well in advance and taken appropriate measures. But today he hadn’t and today he didn’t mind. He stood quite still for a moment, feeling the rain soak through his hair, then his jacket, and then down his back, as if ritually cleansing himself from the first day of the trial.
Adam had always accepted it was part of his job to attend court and in the normal course of events it was a task he undertook with reasonable equilibrium. But this trial was different for all kinds of reasons, and Adam knew just how much he was personally invested in the outcome.
The accused had sat quite still behind the perspex screen all day, with barely a flicker of emotion, not even when the mother of the victim broke down while the evidence was presented in full forensic detail. He remained steadfastly unmoved, his head slightly bowed, his keen blue eyes focused resolutely on some point a little way ahead of him. Only at the very end of the proceedings did he turn and face Adam directly, as if issuing some kind of challenge. Was that a smirk behind his face mask? Or a sardonic smile? It was hard to tell. All Adam knew was that the old man in him wanted to rip that mask off and punch him hard, while the new man whispered something about the fruit of the Spirit being self-control.
Conscious of how wet and cold he was, Adam found shelter in a nearby coffee shop. Later he would go out to his sister Sally in Harold Hill, but right at this moment the bustle of a chaotic family life was the last thing he needed. He ordered a double shot espresso and checked his messages. He ignored nearly every one of them until he found the one he wanted to read, from his fiancée Sadie. They had planned to marry back in June but coronavirus had disrupted their plans, as for so many others, and Adam missed her terribly. Still, he had spent much of the last few years waiting for her and he reasoned that sooner or later the waiting had to be over.
So, taking a sip of his espresso, and checking he really was on his own, Adam clicked on her email and began to read…
To find out more, click on the novels tab…
This was the subject of a poetry writing workshop at a diocesan training day. Here is my effort:
For years I carried deep within my soul
An aching void I never would admit
But filled the space with empty piety
Applauded by the professional elite.
Yet though I bore a name the hunger grew
– And empty rites quenched not my appetite –
And so I gave myself to worldly wealth
Yet searched with anxious heart to find the light.
That’s why one day I knelt down in the dirt
Before the one some claimed to be the Christ.
What did I want? I cannot rightly tell:
Approval? Challenge? Not sacrifice,
Of that I could be sure. My money was
My shield against the emptiness within,
So when He said to give it all away
I found myself confronted by my sin,
And yet too proud to yield it up to Him.
With muddied knees, therefore, I rose and passed,
While on the breeze I heard Him clearly preach:
“The last shall be the first, the first the last.”
What if back then I followed His command?
Would I be now content? I cannot know.
To others I am wise and richly blessed
And yet how much I hate this hollow show.
Abbotsbury
24 Feb 24
Just waiting for the blurb on the back and the final typeset:
Tomorrow, so we’re told, another storm
Will sweep in from the sea and once again
The muddy pastureland and quaggy moor
Will both be soaked by slate-grey pounding rain,
Which will enlarge and swell the upland stream
And turn its gentle flow to angry spate,
While in the shelter of the patchy scrub,
A flock of sparrows will hunker down and wait,
Until this gale abates. But not today.
Today, beneath the icy, azure sky,
We spy a busy goldcrest just above,
And as we stop to listen, by and by,
We hear the nuthatch and the long-tailed tit
A little further on amid the strands
Of tangled ivy, singing of the spring,
Despite the frost that in the hollow stands.
Now we would stop and linger more.
And yet The unrelenting city calls us home,
And so we great reluctance we return,
To our constant stream of email, text and phone.
But wait! A stranger bids us stop, be still
For in the fading sunlight, up beyond,
A kingfisher sits, all peach and neon blue,
Quite undisturbed, it seems, by the surging throng
Emerging from the school. And though the crowd
Ignores or cannot see this wondrous sight,
It is for us a sign of grace and calm,
Before the storm sweeps in this troubled night.
Tavistock
19 Jan 24
The writings of Revd Tim Buckley 