This weekend was for the Big Apple Event so it is only fitting that I include one more Apple Poem to add to Ledbury Poetry Festival's Apple Orchard. The one below is in tribute to the bellringers in my family, particularly my grandfather who is referred to as 'Ole John' who said the bells at Stoke Edith made good music. I have also included in these few lines a show of respect to those who died in World War One. St. Mary's is the church at Stoke Edith which served the 'big house' until fire destroyed it in 1926.
PRINCE'S PIPPIN
My kin heard the masons' hammers,
saw the steeple spiral up to their God,
heard the call of St. Mary's bells:
Ol' John used to say they had music.
They heard the silence in 1914,
too far away to hear the big guns roar
as we stood, shoulder to shoulder, our
feet firmly planted in Hereford's red earth.
Our pink and white petals floated gently
down on a world that stubbornly refuses
to be healed. I have my tree haven
and so we shall all survive, us Pippins.
No comments:
Post a Comment