Ours is a crowded island

Ours is a crowded island
Where we grow tall hedges
And peep over them from upstairs windows
Into each other's lives.

The Beloved Disciple

(On the exhumation of John Henry Newman.)

Resting on his breast.
Resting in his grave.
Closer than a wife.
More distant than a slave.

To love better the grace-lost world,
he loved where friendship blessed.

But those who thought
they loved him more
broke heart, and faith, and rest.

Altar sanctified with dust.
Pious plan confounded.
Heart speaks to heart
in the damp earth compounded.

Copyright (c) 2014 Woodgrange.

Hijab and haraam

Each morning she sweeps leaves from the coral sand.
Hijab.

We lie, flesh reddening, in sybaritic silence.
Haraam.

The beach must be cleansed.
Hijab.

We eat the fruit that poisons Eden.
Haraam.

The sand must be pure.
Hijab.

Noon brings the call to prayer as we sip our beer.
Haraam.

Sweep the beach clean.
Hijab.

Would she sweep us from paradise?
Haraam.


(c) 2012 Woodgrange

Blast

A reflection on the bombing of the Cafe Argana, Marrakesh, on the 28th of April 2011.



Life is noise and death is silent.

The instant crack stops the crowd's murmur
and the now quiet air is tainted 
with the bomb's exhausted breath.


The crowd, at first exhaled in fear,
is sucked back with curiosity.


We shelter in a lamp shop.


The dead sit like mannequins at their cafe tables
backlit by flame,
a scene from Hell's tea room,
and the people raise their right arms
and salute them with the clicking of camera phones.


Click, click, click.


The rest is silence.

Copyright (c) Woodgrange December 2011

Flying foxes

At dusk the waking fruit bats

spread their leathery wings

and form the Gothic dream shapes

of dark imaginings.

Ironic shadows bring to sight

what brazen daylight hides,

and through our fearful child-made minds

the flying foxes glide.

Copyright (c) Woodgrange April 2012