Soft Rain

A soft rain
Attends my sleep,
As
A pale grey
Cloud
Suffuses all.
Beyond the horizon.

The future
Is an empty place
Waiting to be filled
With chocolate
And vanilla ice cream.
Purple kisses
And Parma violets.

JL May 31 15:51

The Green Man

Strangely silent
The day.
Wherein
My sycamore 
Has burgeoned
Into leaf.
And shadowed
All my room
With green.
Lush life.

How I would wish
To be its mirror
And hold
The living moment
In my soul.
To dance
The hedgerow
In a coat
Of velvet green
And quench my thirst
Within a silver stream.

JL May 30 12:27

Veni Creator

Sometimes
The spirit
Steps down.

The candle flame
Falters
And grows dim.

The way
Becomes unsure
The road uncertain.

The doorway
Half open
Hints at yellow light.

It is time
To pause
For breath.


JL May 29 11:24

My Lady Monday

A warm southern lady
Tasting of lavender
And carnations.
Calls to me
Along the wind.

A warm and rounded
Soft embrace
Enfolds and calms
The shivery shadow
Of my world.

Then

The silver sun 
Cascades curtains
Through the morning cloud
To shimmer on the sea.

And I 

Breathless
Praise another dawn
Thankful to share
With you
Another scented summer day.

JL May 28. 09:43

Pentecost

It's a good sixty years since I first heard about Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit in tongues of fire appearing above the heads of the gathered brethren.  I was also made aware of the speaking in tongues: people from all points of the Roman Empire who heard the apostles and understood them in their own language.

Only today thinking on this, did I realise the effect of the tongues, "tongues of fire". Did they also speak with fiery words, words which would enflame their listeners? Were their human tongues empowered to give a new spirit to the people? The metaphor of a burning question, fanning the embers, breathing new life into the fire is all there.  It was inflammatory news which would light its way across the Empire. This week I see a flaming torch being carried through the streets to proclaim the coming of the Olympic Games.

"Oh for a muse of fire which would ascend the brightest heaven of invention."

Even Mr Shakespeare  called for inspiration. 

Draw your own metaphors and allusions. Today is a commemoration of inspiration.

JL May 27 12:10

The Big Deal

The following piece was written in response to a request from the MND care and research term for a piece to be read at a meeting of the local community teams and doctors on the 22 May, on what it was like for me living with MND. Obviously I didn't read it!

The Big Deal

In speaking to an audience of those engaged in the research and care of MND, I presume we are all aware of the accepted psychological presentations in the coping with terminal illness: denial, anger, anxiety, bargaining, and acceptance. The list is in no particular order except the last: the realisation and emotional acceptance of the fact that one is dying. Sometimes the response to the diagnosis is one of denial. I did not travel this path as I knew, to a certain extent what was happening through the various stages of diagnosis.

The next response is one of anger. Why me? Why not? I was not particularly angry as such but I did resent and do resent in an envious way the people I meet who can still do all those things I can’t. I can't speak anymore so the possibility of holding a fluent conversation with someone is now not possible. It is also not possible to express one’s thoughts and ideas with any sophistication or finesse. “Oh how I would love to have an argument? " However, I can communicate with the text to speech app on my iPad. It is moments like this that I feel the anger bubble up and the frustration. This also has another effect: a feeling of isolation and it is so easy to silently, slip inside myself and let all about me flow past. In group situations I can feel “left out" and this makes me sad. I see myself in the distance. This sadness is another aspect of depression. I can allow myself sadness, and sometimes deep sorrow, because through it I can cry and relieve the psychological tension and smile at myself. A note on the I Pad -I was loaned this device with speech app by the Speech and Language Service. I have since bought my own and it is now, literally, my window on the universe.

An aspect of my condition of course is emotional lability and I can cry at the drop of a hat and sometimes hats are dropped in inappropriate places. The performance of a children's choir, the kindness of a friend or the sudden fear of a visit to the dentist occasions a flood of tears. There again my wife is there with a rueful smile or a gentle hug. Nora grants me the freedom to be what I want to be and so conserves my self-esteem.

When this all started I began to keep a journal after reading about Joss Ackland’s wife. A friend saw what I was doing and suggested I start a blog: a personal journal posted on the World Wide Web. It was a way of making my voice heard. I started out aiming to give my response to the world, to find something beautiful in a darkening world, mainly in short pieces of poetry. The pages are read across the world by friends and a great number of anonymous readers. The main response has been to keep going. Some people find them inspiring and read me every day. I almost feel responsible to publish something every day for those people who like to start the day with me. This has given me a purpose when it would be so easy to feel useless and worthless. I will continue until my finger has ceased to be able to touch the keys of my iPad. It is my strategy for keeping sane. I do feel useless in the face of buttons, zips, bottle tops and using a screwdriver. I can’t use a urinal now as my fingers can’t manage my clothes fastenings . I surrender.

And then there is not being able to eat: the burden of bacon frying and knowing I will never be able to eat another bacon sandwich or the drifting aroma of Coq au Vin from the kitchen, make me bite my lip and keep a smile in my mind's eye for those who will have the pleasure of eating them. I bite my lip quite often as the result of jaw muscle spasm and that does make me angry. Sitting round a table and chatting over food and wine is a basic human activity and this has been stolen from me. There is no substitute so I try not to look, no need to whip myself. I manage soft dairy foods and my delight is a sweet espresso coffee.

I am fed through a PEG three times a day, which is no big deal except when the hole becomes infected and smells like a drain or the inside of a dustbin. The fitting of the PEG was no holiday. I have now grown used to being told that an improvement in my quality of life is simple and then it results in a week’s stay in hospital.
I have reduced respiration so I retain carbon dioxide and I had a stay in Preston to be be provided with a ventilator for use at night. Then I spent a twenty four hour stay in Aintree on a bed of nails while having blood taken from my wrist and then a return, weeks later for a new mask. This one is fine and assists sleep although the harness bites into my left ear. I don’t feel sleepy in the afternoons now but on the other hand I miss an effortless dreamless sleep for two hours. Then there is the growing fatigue which swallows my intentions and the slow unsteady walk which saps my strength. It is a slow disintegration bit by bit.

So I have dealt with denial, isolation, and depression but the other common strategy is bargaining.” If I do this God, will you do that? I don't waste my time down this blind alley.

Finally, and you are probably saying. “Thank God for that!” I come to acceptance.
Once I was stopped in the street by a person I know who is a member of my parish. She said "Do you thank God for this gift? My comment was, “No not really”, while internally I was thinking, "Sod off you stupid woman!" Now I am not too sure. It has certainly given me the impetus to write creatively for a definite purpose.

Here I will embark on trying to explain my spiritual approach to managing the slow dying process of MND. I am a fully paid up member of the Catholic Church though certainly not uncritical. I had heard of people who had lost their faith in the face of HIV and MND. This is relevant to all faith traditions, be it Christianity, Islam, Judaism or Lao Tse Taoism. I try to keep in touch with my spiritual side whenever I am really challenged in my feelings. I believe in the transcendental nature of the human spirit. There are numerous learned articles in the,” American Journal of Holistic Nursing” which are relevant to spirituality in the care of the terminally ill. I find my spiritual awareness to be a good fall-back position. I consider myself to have a spiritual dimension. Death is not the problem. It is germane to the human condition. It is the process of dying which causes the apprehension. I am dying bit by bit. I just pray that I have the strength to stay the course with some personal dignity which I can create within myself when my body suffers all the indignity. For this I will hope for the assistance of those about me.

In doing some research on spirituality and care of the terminally ill, I was amazed to find almost 1500 citations since 1995 and an article on “a grounded theory of spirituality and care, for undergraduate nurses as a part of holistic nursing”. …Assisting patients spiritually is a growing focus. This was taken from an abstract in the present issue of the, “Journal of Clinical Nursing”.
“Research on spirituality and health needs to move forward in a systematic and coordinated way." JCN July 2006.

So there you go.

They also asked to use the "Majesty" poem from the blog on 10 May.

JL May 26 11:22

Siesta

I remember

Midday heat
In the high town,
In silence
A stray cat
Slips by the 
The deserted bar.

The great war soldier
Stands 
In stony silence
By the sleeping 
Central fountain 
Of the square.

Creaking 
Into the church,
A sanctuary
Of ancient damp
I light a candle
Before St Anthony.

All people are
Shuttered away.

Having watered 
Their window boxes
With my curiosity
I can slip into the shade
Of the castle keep
And fall asleep.

JL May 25. 11:23

Wholly Holy

You wore grey gloves
At Mass today.
I saw you kneel
But looked away

Your veil cast back
The faintest smile
A scent of jasmine
Down the aisle.

And as you dipped
On blended knee
I marked the moment
Trapped for me.

JL May 24 11:01

Nunc Dimittis

The sun sets
Against my sycamore
The goldfinch 
Flicks its way to roost.

The white wall waits
As shadows lengthen
And the rising moon
Draws the eventide.

The far forest
Slips into a silhouette
As all our children
Fall into a fitful sleep.

Having nowhere else to go,
I make for home.

JL May 23 10:57

Through the Window

To throw open 
A window on a Spanish square,
A greenwood pool,
A pale green lagoon,
A hilltop Tuscan town,
Or To sleep 
Beneath a palm,
An umbrella pine
And inhale the scent
Of grilling langoustine,
To hear the lullaby
Of the gentle surf,
I once was there
Now not to be.

Those were the days.

JL May 22. 10:18

The Curlew

No sound as lonely
As the curlew's cry,

At dawn the greyest
Opening of new day

Sifting through grasses
By the sedges edge.

At sunset a saddening 
Beyond all hope,

That call at twilight
Twists my soul,

As the curlew cries
A melody of tears.

JL May 21 10:22

Sunday After The Ascension

In Italy
On this Sunday 
Long years past
Children skip
Beneath spring trees 
All in ethereal
Lacey white.
Girls swing on swings.
Cream suited boys
Cry out with 
With high pitched glee
Tumbling down 
The chapel steps.
This  town has called 
Its first communion.
And I can smile
In a corner of the square.

JL May 19. 10:36

Weekend Ways

Shopping in the 1950s was so very different from today. That is a truism. I was  so fully immersed in the shopping experience that I should have had "Errand Boy" printed on my forehead.

I started out as an amateur, being sent by my mother to the Village. The Village was Withington in South Manchester. It was more or less a single street, Wilmslow Road, with shops on either side. Our grocery shop was T Seymore Mead's, a shop with high dark brown counters. There  were huge barrel shaped mounds of butter and sugar in sacks: the butter to be wrapped in greaseproof paper and the sugar in blue sugar -paper bags. I went to the shop with the list and it was delivered later by a boy on a bike. John Williams was a less favoured establishment, although much nearer, being just around the corner.The place for all dry goods, dried fruit, and nuts was Redmans and it had its own distinctive aroma. I was sent for meat to Rodley's round the corner. Rodley had a very fine MG TF all red and shiny.  He had a reputation for high prices and had to be watched. I was under strict instructions "No fat !".

 There was also a Private subscription library in Boots the chemist, which my mother joined, probably because they had a reputation for clean books. I was never allowed to borrow comics because of the danger of germs. I was however a member of the library which stood at the entrance to the village and I went there, usually, on Saturday afternoon.

I became a professional errand boy working for J Evans & Son green grocers on Mauldeth road  in the parade of shops adjoining Yew Tree road. I worked on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The orders were packed in boxes and I loaded them on my order bike and off I went. I sometimes collected money but generally the order was pre-paid. My final order was slightly out of the district delivered to the  chairwoman of the local Conservative Association, Mrs Schofield.  Mrs Evans was a staunch Conservative.  It was a large order and usually totalled 12/6, quite a lot for those days. I usually got a tip of 6d for my trouble here. 

If I had time to spare before I finished at one o'clock, I used to wash celery with water and a soft brush. The bananas, in those days came in long wooden coffin shaped boxes and I was not allowed to open those because you never knew what was inside. Spiders and snakes were quite common. The snakes were dead but still frightening.

Then I went off home to the welcoming aroma of roast beef and our usual Saturday dinner, no lunch in those days and then sometimes off to the Match in the afternoon to Old Trafford with my Dad.

Sunday was a church day. As I was an altar boy I was required morning and afternoon; every Sunday morning but every other afternoon. The priests I served were good men. The old parish priest was a bit crotchety, had a limp and found it difficult moving about. This made him irritable. The two curates were helpful, kind and caring. There there was no funny goings on in my parish. I would have known. Altar boys were given, in those days, to detailed scandal and gossip, usually about the local talent.

JL May 18 12:28

Dust Motes

Today
Let us think
Of smiling things

Dancing 
Dust motes
In a melody of light

Dappled
Leafiness
Under rain

Flowers
Shining
In the grass

And after showers
Sunlight again.

JL May 18 11:29

Viri Galilaei

So still this morning
Caught between the clouds
And the grey sea.

I would have had 
A sunshine feast
For today.

So I might 
Look beyond
The hopeful sky

That such a day 
Should be a joy
As well as a farewell.

JL May 17 11:57

On Seeing a Young Lady Pass My Window

Be calm
Be patient
And be 
Kind.

Be soft
Be willing
Undefined.

Let all
Be open 
Unafraid

Yielding
Fragile
Partly frail.

BUT

Beware you don't
Display
Your heart.

And so
Upset
The apple cart.

JL May 16. 10:43

All at Sea

I did not wish 
To be a mariner
And set a course
Cross stormy seas
With sails set
At midnight
Crying
"Let the wind take me."

As the dawn rises
Across a grey sea,
There is a hard hand
On the tiller.
There are rocks 
To be avoided,
Threats 
To be addressed,
A grim set to the jaw
And a bite into the wind.

No GPS do I hold
Just an old fashioned compass.
For an old journey
With an ancient hull, shipping water, 
and a glimmer of faith.

JL May 15 12:02

Let me not to the marriage of true minds.....

"Love is not love which alters
Where it alteration finds."

I find myself much altered
And yet I feel much loved.

An enduring loyalty
Builds my strength.
A truly great nurse
Is a faithful friend.

I can relax in this embrace
And God knows
We need his love
In a bitter and unloving world.

With all my love

Jeff
May 14. 11:19

Nymph

The sacred trilling
Over stepping stones
Where water whirls
And all is rounded
In the liquid loving
Of your lips
The
Nymph of water world
Where surging  streams
Rush round about
The silver gleam
Of salmon parr
And
How you found
The face of moon
Smiling in the Shallows
Of the lake
Then
To slip away
Through the clouds
Of breaking day.

Fancy that.

JL May 13 10:18

Our Day Out

Just another childhood memory to end the week. Sometimes in the summer holidays mainly before I was eight years old I came down to breakfast to find my mother preparing a packed lunch. Sandwiches were usually made of Shippams meat paste. I believe it is still produced and has had its difficulties making the paste from inappropriate meat.

Off we went on the familiar 97 bus to Manchester Oxford road and then a walk, I thought  was interminable, in,fact ten minutes to Mosley Street bus station. Then on a sunny morning to join the immense queue for the X61 to Blackpool. The number of this bus still runs even to this day. The buses were Ribble, Standerwick and sometimes Lancashire United, never Manchester Corporation Transport. The buses were crowded and to have a seat on the top deck was favourite.

The route was always the same and I presume it is the same today although with more stops. The first stop was Bolton, just a few minutes away, as I felt it, and just the beginning of the journey. Then there came Chorley and I knew we were getting near. Preston was the the final stop and the most exciting because is was from there that you could watch for the first sight of Blackpool tower. 

Then we spent most of the day on the sands with our Shippams meat paste sandwiches, a piece of fruit cake and a cup of tea. The cup of tea came from a little shed on the prom.

I amaze myself that I remember such detail as I was less than eight years old. My brother was born when I was nearly nine and he was never part of these trips.

And another thing, I can never remember the journey home.

I stole the title.

JL May 12 07:52

Anemone

Rain splashes
My face 
Into wakefulness

Before me the new 
Greenness
Of the spring day

I wait to,see
The anemone 
Unfurl

A surprising
Swell of colour
To add a blessing
To my Friday .


JL 11 May 13:03

Majesty

 

I love the way
This willow
Whirls and weeps,
In first flush
Of lemon green
Spring rounded
To the sky

Like some great god
From under sea
With weeds all caught
Into his streaming hair
Rose up to stand
Full high beyond the dunes.

Even in the stillness 
Of an afternoon in May,
Its leafy whispers
Called an echo from the shore.
And in a breath of wind
I was held within
The hand of majesty
That could create
Such proud symmetry of green.

JL May 10 11:59

Mind's eye

Look 
The morning dew
Has settled on the rose.

The sun is casting
Lemon light
Along the open road.

Where children skip
And laugh aloud
Under their sky.

Take care traveller
In the rain
To keep a smile
In your mind's eye.

JL. May 9. 11:25

Forlorn

I

Sketch the line
Of a familiar tree
Against the sky

Writing in the cloud
Lines drift across
The setting sun

A solitary fragment
Single as the heron
Toils across the lake

The curlew calls
From soul to soul
Across the marsh

Again the shadow's
Fingers creep
Along the gable end
And stroke us into sleep.

JL May 9 15:53

May Bank Holiday

I remember
May days 
Long ago
Of rain drops
Down the collar
Of rhododendrons
Dripping red
Drop roses
By the hedge's edge.
Blackbird's up tail warning
Alarming through the copse
The rising squelch
Of drenched boot mire
And all the chill
Of spring on hold.
Then
By the stone wall's lee
Cheese and pickle sandwich
And a flask of sweetened tea.

How long will it take to get back home Dad?

JL May 7. 11:37

Shadows

The shadows lengthen
And the lines
Sketched upon your,face
Are the lines 
That speak to me 
Of love and care .

If that should fail
I too would shrink
And slip away
Like a boat 
Slips anchor,
And you the same
As fisher wives
Look out to sea
So let me go,
Turn back to shore
And living things
To occupy your love.

JL May 6 16:16

In the Garden

Once, long ago I had the privilege, pleasure and character building fortune, to spend a year of afternoons working in walled kitchen garden beside a country house in warwickshire. The house was first built in the 1600s and rebuilt in 1830 and set in a large estate with rolling parkland. In the Civil War, I am told, a force of five thousand Royalist troops paused there before being pushed away by a superior Parliamentarian force and eventually re-grouped to join the king at Coventry. The king was pushed toward Oxford and Coventry became the parliament headquarters in the Midlands. Royalist prisoners were ostracised by the the townsfolk, hence the saying " sent to Coventry."

I first came upon it early in the October of 61 when the espalier apples and pears which walled the inner beds were in full fruit. At that particular moment it was a place of peace and quiet to walk, think and apprehend the coming experience, no sign of Roundhead skirmishes then.

I arrived for duty on Monday afternoon and was allotted my task. I was to be a digger. I was given a spade with the shiny patina of many years of slice and scrunch and it was to be kept like that. It was to be washed and oiled after each use, then inspected once it had been hung in its place on the rack. The rack was in the shed in the the north east corner with a stand pipe tap outside ( for washing tools ?) and a fig tree around its door. Along the adjacent south facing wall were the fan trained peach trees. It was this area with its long two and half yard wide bed which had to be double dug, by me, before the winter frosts which would break it down into a manageable tilth.

Many hours later and with bowed back and blistered palms I had dug a ten yard stretch. Then came the inspection " Dig it again and get it level this time."
Nobody had mentioned the word "level" to me. After a second careful digging, my work was again judged " Not quite level"
"Try once more and we'll make a digger on you yet."
" It won't need frost to break it up. I have done it already!"
"No but the next stretch will."
And so with straightened back and shiny palms I continued to skim the surface and turn the sod. I turned many a sod in my time there but my final supreme skill was to dig a conical bed around a centre statue ready for the bedding plants in the front of the East elevation of this, once Jacobean, now Victorian, country house. The result was judged acceptable.

The inspector general was the head gardener, Syd Hyatt. Syd was a short and stocky Warwickshire man with broad hands and a flat cap, never to be removed except to accompany a thoughtful scratch. " My ol da oftentimes wore his to bed, no more reason than he was absent minded. Mind you it used to smell a bit if he ad been out muck spreadin." His cottage, shared with his wife was round by the fruit store with a rope of dead magpies and crows on a line strung between two trees. The fruit store was a long shed with openings at both ends to let a draught through and the apples and pears were gently laid on slats so that the air could circulate around them.

The kitchen garden itself had sections for different vegetables and fruits. I tended to stay in my own quarter although I did earth up some celery in one of the enclosed beds. Just close by was the asparagus in fern. "This asparagus bed is nearly a hundred years old." I also remember the espalier prunings used as support canes and markers in the spring . Along the wall of the bed I dug at first were the fan trained peaches, which I mentioned before, though I never saw one ripe as I was not there for the midsummer ripening. One feature I will always remember was the Mulberry tree. The grass below was left to grow long so that when the tree was shaken vigorously the fruit would fall gently into the long grass and would remain unbruised. It was a very large tree. The only one of such a size I have ever seen was in the courtyard of William Wilberforce's house in Hull.

In later years I visited the house to find the parkland under wheat, the house gone in a fire, when it was sold and used as a country club. Two walls of the kitchen garden remained. The garden itself was grassed over, the stores all gone, though the cottage still remained. It does probably remain in the memory of the many men who worked there over the years and so it should. If not the pleasure of a task well done, surely the agony of weeding gravel paths on frosty November afternoons with frozen fingers, then they must certainly be remembered. And finally there was the vision of the hunt galloping across the winter parkland in the pink and at full cry.

In my memory and in my mind’s eye I have it still.

JL May 5th 2011 10:59

Coming Up For Air

Splashing through 
The colours 
Of the day

Springing green
With purple candles
In the lilac grove
Cherry and the plum
Apple blossom 
Follows on.
All the bubbles 
In the brook
Chatter back.

I am coming up for air.

JL May 4. 11:25

A Little Light

How many times
Have I turned 
This way before,
Shuffled 
On the dusty floor,
Heard the echo
Of my footfall,
Stumbled by
The frescoed
Stations of the cross?

It's dark here
As it ever was.

Till the glasswork
Of Chagall,
Through colour,
Changed my face
And showered
Sunlight 
All about the place.

JL May 3rd. 11:06

Turning in the Lane

I always loved
That turning in the lane
The high hedge
The wasps nest
In the cruck
Of blackthorn
The five barred gate
Two steps
And a leap
The ankle twisted 
And the limp home

Where that homestead now
The warm glow
In the inglenook
The woodsmoke tears
Bread thick buttered
And plum jam,
Smiled at faces
Lost and gone?
Where now the question
Leading me on
Into the mystery
Of the nave
Tomorrow?


JL May 2nd 08:45

Fare Forward

Over your shoulder
I see footsteps,
In the snow,
The sand,
The dust.
The past is 
Now complete.
I know all
About answers.

Peering
Through the mist,
Beyond the curtain
The turning 
In the lane,
The mystery
Of the nave
Begs the question,
Prompting
The way forward.

We have to ask
For guidance.
Where now?
Tomorrow
Is the turning
In the lane.

JL The First of may 11:45