Because He Is Risen

Because He is risen
Spring is possible
In all the cold hard places
Gripped by winter

(Gerard Kelly, from Because He Is Risen)

I recently came across Gerard Kelly's poem while looking for something else, and liked it so much I wanted to post it here. You can read the rest of it on this lovely blog featuring poetry and art on the subject of spirituality.



I particularly liked the lines "this frail and fragile body / Will not be the final word / on my condition / Because he is risen" - they felt very apt as I spent a lot of time in February and March trailing round medical appointments (mostly routine but very stressful and time-consuming) and feeling rather fed up with the not very compatible combination of ME and diabetes.



I'm still trying to catch up with everything. I hadn't realised how long it had been since I had blogged though.



Spring has most definitely sprung in my garden and there are new flowers out every day. I wanted to post some, but haven't had much time to take photos: these were nearly all taken around this time last year.



A slightly belated happy Easter!

The Rain In The UK Falls Mainly In My Garden

I haven't had time for blogging lately as R took the last week off so we could get some things done in our house and garden, with a view to getting them back on the market soon. Thankfully there were plenty of things to do in the house, as it has rained almost all week, prompting me to take refuge in haiku again:

Rain falls like stair rods
Trapped inside we watch garden
Poppies are flattened

On the plus side, as James recently noted, weeds loosened by rain do slide like oiled wrestlers from the ground (though what they were doing in the ground in the first place I can't think. The wrestlers that is, not the weeds), and after a brief sunny spell our front garden, path, drive, and patio are now a weed-free zone.

I also, thankfully, took some photos of the poppies before they were flattened - hopefully I'll get the time to post them here at a later date (the picture at the top of this post is an old one). Some more Desert Island Gardens and Things To Do In South Cambs will also follow shortly.

Easter Song

I got me flowers to straw Thy way,
I got me boughs off many a tree;
But Thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.

The sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume,
If they should offer to contest
With Thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.

George Herbert, from Easter

ME Haiku

Bad brain fog day: can't
Count up to seventeen, let
Alone write haiku.

Apologies to those people who have seen my haiku before - it's one I wrote a while ago. A cold just before Christmas followed by several late nights around the new year seem to have reduced my brain from something approaching functional to an empty space with tumbleweeds blowing through it. Not only have I not managed to blog, I've not managed to reply to the comments on my last post, and I've been having trouble reading other people's blogs and commenting on them (my akregator currently says 216 unread posts - oops).

I have just dug this T-shirt out of the wardrobe to show you as it expresses how I've been feeling for most of the past fortnight:



Normal service will be resumed as soon as my mind returns from its wander ... in the meanwhile, if you see it, please send it back in the Cambridge direction!

Easter haikus

I wrote these for elsewhere, but as I haven't had time to post much here lately, I thought I'd put them here too. I hope no-one finds them contentious - they are meant to be personal, not preachy.

Friday
Today no chicks,
No bunnies, choc eggs, parades,
Just whips, nails, blood, pain, death.

Sunday
Today parades!
Chicks, eggs, fresh green growth, new hope,
And life forever more.


Pulsatilla vulgaris (pasque flower)