Choice

Why fall we pray so often

To the victim of our passionate response

To some small thing

Whose harmony does not accord with ours?

Do matters thus exert some hidden power on us

To form a righteous verdict

And disturb our peace of mind?

Are we so fragile as to feel compelled

To form opinions and so dispel

The hopes and fears of others likewise trapped?

The choice is ours. Aurelius says:

Escape from man’s true sin

Is so to exercise the knowledge

That our souls cannot be marked

By any outward thing,

Unless we let it in.

John H Davies

28th May 2011

Silver Screen

She took me out to watch a movie

for some light entertainment

and instead we saw a film

about the Australian underworld

in which practically everyone

met a miserable end, but despite

the content we emerged from the

theatre feeling strangely uplifted.

John H Davies

27th May 2011 

Flor Y Sol

The flowers are in bloom

but the sun isn’t shining.

I had thought the two

went hand in hand;

that one was a prerequisite

of the other, or that

the other heralded the

splendour of the one.

But sometimes the two

don’t go hand in hand,

and they are poorer for it.

John H Davies

26th May 2011 

Dawn Chorus

There wasn’t much for a child to do

in the small bungalow and all you could see

from the bedroom window as we lay together

in the grey of the morning, were five

telegraph wires like a stave of music,

and as the birds perched upon them in

a seemingly arbitrary fashion, Nana hummed

the melody they described from pole

to pole in her soft Welsh contralto.

John H Davies

25th May 2011 

Path of Least Resistance

The path of least resistance

can also be the path best lit;

the path along which the traveller

needs no map or compass,

and with a little wind behind,

the gentle gradient will carry him

to his yet undisclosed destination.

John H Davies

24th May 2011 

Parallel Universe

There is a quiet place

on the outskirts of the village

from which you can spy

all the landmarks of your life.

The school you didn’t attend;

the fields of buttercups

through which we wouldn’t roam;

Old Windmill Hill, up which

I don’t see you running with a kite;

and over the brow, our home

where you never grew up.

The church where you weren’t

Christened, but instead a short

service brought you here to rest

locked in your six weeks

of what might have been,

where I return from time to time

to find out how you’re doing.

John H Davies

23rd May 2011

Books

If I had to save anything

from the burning house,

it would be the books.

I could live pretty well

with nothing but a book;

to feel, to smell, to feed

my mind and fan the flames.

And when the lights go out

I will light a candle

and read my books.

John H Davies

22nd May 2011