Poetry and Readings
Poetry can help us express thoughts and feelings in a way that no other form of literature can. I am collecting here some of my favourites to share with you and over time the list will grow.
I don't own the copyright of any of these poems, they are here as a reference.
The Ship
The ship
I am standing upon that foreshore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs down like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down and mingle at the horizon.
Then someone at my side says: 'There! She's gone!
‘Gone where?’
‘Gone from my sight, that’s all.’
She is just as large in mast and spar and hull as ever she was when she left my side;
just as able to bear her load of living freight to her place of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at that moment when someone at my side says,
'There! She's gone!' there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout
'Here she comes!'
And that is dying.
Charles Henry Brent (1862 – 1929)
Miss me but Let Me Go
Miss me but let me go
When I come to the end of the road,
And the sun has set for me.
I want no rites in a gloom-filled room
Why cry for a soul set free?
Miss me a little – but not too long,
And not with your head bowed low.
Remember the love that we once shared,
Miss me – but let me go.
For this is a journey that we all must take,
And each must go alone,
It is all part of nature’s plan,
A step on the road to home.
When you are lonely and sick of heart,
Go to the friends we know,
And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.
Miss me but let me go.
Glyn Shipton
An Extract from 'No Matter What'
An extract from No Matter What
“Does love wear out” said Small, “does it break or bend? Can you fix it, stick it, does it mend?”
“Oh help,” said Large “I’m not that clever. I just know I’ll love you forever”.
Small said: “But what about when you’re dead and gone? Would you love me then? Does love go on?”
Large held Small snug as they looked out at the night, at the moon in the dark and the stars shining bright.
“Small, look at the stars – how they shine and glow. Yet some of those stars died a long time ago. Still they shine in the evening skies… love, like starlight, never dies”.