Monkton Prep School – World Poetry Day 2017
23 Mar 2017
For World Poetry Day, we thought we would share some of the poems already collected on our Poetry trail number one. The trail was launched early last month by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and invites walkers to leave their thoughts in the many collection tins scattered along the trail. Please click here if you would like more information about the trails. Meantime enjoy some of the creations.
The golden sun hiding
Between the trees
Rising, above everything
Like our source of life
That conquers all eveil
She gives her warmth to
Everybody who follows her
Trees standing shoulder to
Shoulder, tall and strong
Birds singing to welcome the morning
The ground, cold and frosty
But still soft and moldable
Glittery drops of rain
Rain
Can you hear them speaking, singing
Falling so soft, so loud
A thousand thousand stories lie
In every slate-flecked cloud
In every liquid gem that falls
A note, a sentence caught
That play the music of the world
And make the skies contort
In storm cloud, white cloud, grey and black
Or the cirrus whisper sigh
The clouds that gather and then release
To wash clean the darkened sky
Imagine where they’ve roamed and seen
What stories can they tell?
Bring them from sea, from river, pond
From lake and desert well
They hear the birdsong across the air
The flight of aeroplanes
Gather and send them to the ground
To be retold again
Yet, ah, how sad the tales must be
So silent vigil keep
For as the sky recalls the tales
It cannot help but weep.
We are the Fallen Ones
We are the fallen ones,
The history bookmakers, the fathers and sons,
We’ll fight on a land of green
Until we are free.
The red that will stain our breast
Will not go away until we will rest,
Until we have done our best – we’ll rest.
Louise Smallbone
Thought 1
The lesson hasn’t started
So I watch
Out the window
As the sunlight dapples the ground.
On the path
Trodden by so many
Oblivious
To the fractured light that strokes
Their faces.
My window watching eyes wonder
To beyond
The Oak
That stands firm
Protective
Of the home
The shelter to its roots.
The class begins without me
My eyes
Still affixed
To that
Other
World
Outdoors
As the valley rolls on
Unheard
Thought 2:
If life is a field
Then I’m standing with the blades of grass nipping at my heels
And I’m tripping over tiny hills that my toes fail to feel
And I’m waiting for the next full moon and sky of stars to come
So I can navigate my way back home via ethereal breadcrumbs.
But I guess if I have time to pass whilst shimmering in the green, I can think about why I am here and what the flowers mean.
We’re all out here getting stung by the nettles.
Not getting what we want so we just decide to settle.
But I believe that nothing here should settle but the dust
That we’ve blown off the books that tell the stories of us…..
And a thought from a year 10
The sun squeezes through the cracks in the trees and as it does, I squint. The sun blinds me with its many rays. Shadows form where the sun simply cannot be bothered to shine. The sun shimmers off of the trees, creating many shadows for the ivy that infects the magnificent beasts that live and thrive in the environment around them. The effulgent sun peaks behind the edge of the valley and is shielded from me as the trees sway from side to side. The crisp, bitter cold has not yet fully left the trees. The grass is shiny, as if polished by nature. It’s almost as if nature is taking over.
Green moss sticks to the trees like a second skin, as if protecting them from the harsh burn of the sun. Leaves fall from the sky as they await their deaths. With a final plea for salvation, they fall to the ground crying out in pain as they get trampled on again and again.
The golden sun hiding between the trees, rising above everything like the source of life that conquers all evil. She gives her warmth to everyone who follows her.
Trees standing shoulder to shoulder, tall and strong.
Birds singing to welcome the morning. Glittery drops of rain.