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.