What’s happening to all the bees?
If you know do tell me please!
Have they found a better life,
Free from toil and work and strife?
In a field of endless bloom
With lots of nectar, and with room
For all the bees from all the hives –
How I hope they’ve all survived!
As I think about it now,
Perhaps they’ve gone to join the cows
Where grass is green and sky is sunny –
In a land of milk and honey!
© Richard Clarkson, July 2016
Behind the altar candles gently burn.
A wisp of smoke dances then fades away
as Father Jacques, too old for dancing, pauses.
Another morning Mass, another day.
For many years this man of peace has stood here
in service of his people and his Lord.
In joy and pain, in sorrow and in rapture,
a constant beacon in a darkening world.
But as he scans the faces of the faithful
two unfamiliar visitors appear
and, in those final moments at the altar,
he knows that perfect love which drives out fear.
Your service ended, Ite Missa Est.
Faithful servant enter now your rest.
(c) Rich Clarkson 2016
Producing fruit is hard, just ask the apple tree:
It takes the right conditions, it takes time and energy
to turn the blossom’s beauty into vessels for the seed
but in due season, when it’s ready, fruit will come.
You can’t expect a Pippin in a February frost,
or a heaving bough of Coxes on the feast of Pentecost
and come September, when the Braeburn’s bare, it may seem all is lost
but in due season, when it’s ready, fruit will come.
There is wisdom in the seasons, in the cycle of the year,
in the ebb and flow of fruitfulness across the biosphere
for, even when the winter bites, and hunger turns to fear,
in due season, when it’s ready, fruit will come.
It may be hard when harvest is a struggle and a chore
when the bounteous crops of yesteryear are memories, no more,
but in Jesus we are branches, grafted firm and sure
and in due season, when it’s ready, fruit will come.
(c) Rich Clarkson 2016
Come let us ascend this holy hill,
direct our feet towards the house of God.
We walk where countless saints before have trod
and, in years to come, yet more saints will
discover whence the living waters flow.
Unsteady feet for some, uncertain minds
for others yet all come to seek, to find,
to pray, to learn, to reconcile, to grow.
Come, turn your gaze past scaffold and boutiques,
past market stalls and shops and chained up bikes,
past memories and future fears alike
for, in this moment, Christ alone we seek.
And in the shadows of this holy place,
within these well worn stones we glimpse his face.
(c) Rich Clarkson 2016
The hippopotamus, the ‘river-horse’.
Not like our English horses: docile, tame,
With their sugarlumps and carrots, while their force
Is harnessed for our service or our games.
But to the Greeks a ίππος* was no pet.
To all who in its way would dare to stand
It was wild and dangerous, a threat.
The ίππος. War horse. Conqueror of lands.
Then there’s the ποταμος*, the river. Wide
With vast, unbridled power when in flood,
Its shadow harsh and desolate when dried.
In wax or wane with power of life and blood.
Untameable. Unyielding. Dangerous.
The ‘river-horse’, the hippopotamus.
(c) Rich Clarkson 2015
*
ίππος = ‘hippos’
ποταμος = ‘potamos’
A holiday in Spain. Amongst the trees,
nestled just a stones throw from the waves
which lapped the shore, the tents in their enclaves
lay open, hoping for the faintest breeze.
The morning routine soon fell into place:
“Get up, don’t wake your Mum!” “Go play downstairs.”
“Who wants a drink?” “an egg?” “Don’t cheat, play fair!”
“Please go and get the bread (it’s not a race!)”
The bread came in a van each morning, warm
and golden. Cries of “pan!” drew in the crowds.
And in those crowds, a boy. A young boy, proud
to be allowed to choose the shape and form
of that day’s bread. And with it, you could say,
the shape and form and flavour of the day.
At first familiar shapes were carried back.
Long elegant baguettes with dappled skin
which barely held the soft white crumb.
Or individual rolls for sandwiches to pack,
ready for a day up in the hills.
But after not so many canvas nights,
emboldened by the tantalising sights,
The boy’s pesetas sought out other thrills.
Each day the crust grew thicker, and the crumb,
translucent in the summer heat, brought sour,
unfamiliar tastes as rich brown flour
found something wholly different to become.
In that old van beneath the Spanish sun,
A long, slow transformation was begun.
© Richard Clarkson 2013
Time is an unsympathetic master
for those enslaved to her sparse granted hours,
to fill them they work faster and yet faster,
squeezing every drop that she allows.
She does not rest, or pause, but marches onwards,
each second taking one more step along
the road which stretches on, it’s miles unnumbered;
for those held in her thrall here they belong.
But time is not as fixed as she would want us
to believe, no there are worlds beyond her reach.
Worlds where bread breathes, seeds stir, children wonder,
a world where listening takes the place of speech.
The choice is ours: to rush after time’s thrills,
or choose to seek the place where time stands still.
(c) Rich Clarkson 2011
Like a hundred separate branches in one fire
A hundred varied voices in one choir
A hundred hidden heartbeats in one crowd
A hundred thousand raindrops in one cloud
A hundred starlings dancing in one flock
A hundred unique cogs joined in one clock
So too, though we are many, we are one
Though we are different, here we all belong
(c) Rich Clarkson 2011
She lives the fullness of the spectrum’s gaze,
feels all the complex frequencies of light,
sees every single colour as it plays
a symphony of unalloyed delight.
She cares more deeply than an ocean blue,
loves iridescent as the sunset’s glow.
Her kindness is as pure as amber hue
her gentleness like starlight on fresh snow.
She is a prism lighting up the world
with glorious chromatic joie de vivre,
an allium’s firework overnight unfurled,
A golden fibre glinting in the weave.
Her artistry, her beauty and her grace
none could replace.
(c) Rich Clarkson, 2016
If “home is where the heart is” as they say
Then my heart lies in pieces, scattered round
Like driftwood on a thousand different bays,
Not lost or dead but waiting to be found.
“it’s where you hang your hat” the saying goes
But my hat does not live on just one stand;
It rests on chairs and doors and piles of clothes,
Or sometimes simply stays right where it lands.
To call a house a home robs both those words
Of dignity, for they are not the same
For ‘home’ cannot be caged up like a bird
Contained within it’s finite woven frame
No, ‘home’ is like a song to those who hear it
Unseen, unheld, but felt when you are near it.
(c) Rich Clarkson 2011
At God’s command the universe was born;
A symphony of colour, light and sound.
Then life in all its myriad different forms
Sprang up, and in God’s image man was crowned.
But freedom and temptation left love spurned,
As God’s call went unheeded by his own.
From time to time the faithful would return
Then fall again, some other to enthrone.
But God did not give up or turn His face,
Despite the countless tears He must have cried.
Instead He stepped into this messed up place
Where Jesus lived, and laughed, and loved, and died.
So now he calls us children, His beloved
with love’s great riches ours to be discovered
(c) Rich Clarkson 2011
With pen in hand I sit here more in hope than expectation
As the ideas buzz around without that spark of inspiration
That can take a simple word or thought from something two dimensional
And give it depth to make it beautiful and unconventional
But tonight that perfect rhyme or phrase or wordplay seems elusive
And as ideas come and go they seem so frail and inconclusive
So instead of trying to capture them in frustration and sorrow
I’ll shut my book and go to bed and try again tomorrow.
(c) Rich Clarkson 2011
Rich Clarkson Poetry 