Saturday, August 06, 2011

RESTORATION

I often walk along our Rhymney River through the now meadowed pathways where the railway sidings of Brittania Colliery used to be. The pit has gone, along with all physical evidence of its imposing and vital presence to the community which is now a different place to that which I grew up in ... but those of us who lived within its shadow cannot help but remember and wonder at the things that have been won and lost with its demise ...  this is one of my recent attempts to reflect on the changes


Black blood flowed 
down wounded valleys 
mixed with the rush of 
the iron-red streams
pumped from the heart 
of the virgin strata 
as men scratched low 
with their flesh and bone
for the loan of a loaf
a roof and a home.

Black scars marred 
the mountain moorland
shaped the run 
of the sun in the cwm
time clutched hard
to the wheel that winding
marked the birth and 
the death of the day
while doorsteps waited 
for their men to pay. 

Black shadows 
now a fading memory 
of washed out riches 
and wasted hills
as sunshine springs 
down natured pathways
new journeys weave
round the ancient track
for a rainbow promise 
and a long look back.

(c) 2009 Graham Oakes

Thursday, August 04, 2011

Surprising Blade

“… she, for whatever reason, finds something loveable in this most unlovable of men … and the soul, once it’s insisted upon - being loved - has only one inevitable response and that is to love back and gradually a soul gets stitched ponderously back together and something resembling a human being gets reconstructed …”  

Bob Geldorf  in a  Radio 4 interview.


Surprising Blade.

Unlovely and unloving,
full of guilt and cold remorse;
taking much but seldom giving,
letting sorrow run its course.


All the world on the attack,
low you hide, without defence.
Centuries stoop upon your back
raising walls of dry pretence.


Tough the skin and hard the core,
yet you fail to stem the tears.
Resistance only brings to fore
words that fan the flaming fears.


Helpless you; and hopeless too,
Life has failed to satisfy.
Slow to dream of morrows new,
quick the thoughts to fall and die ...


Cold the heart … but hot the steel
of that Surprising Blade
which cuts, so deep, to purge and heal;
Glory strikes: the shadows fade.  


Light, for darkness long endured,
Love, for raw and hurting soul;
Life, for Ransom, full, assured,
Hope restored, as one made whole.


Now, renewed as fertile ground,
the wilderness, in thrice blessed praise    
with grateful songs to heaven resounds,
and lives to love eternal days.


© July 2011 Graham Oakes