Category Archives: Poetry

Lenten Journey continues

10 Friday Mar 2017

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Here I humbly offer days 6 to 10 of my journey through this Lent. This year it seems more focussed – I have no idea why;

6th

The world is in a winter
a winter state of mind where people bomb the innocent
no glory there to find

how can those victims realise
the presence of a god who doesn’t interfere at all
no glory there – no doubt

7th

Today is much more hopeful
the news is still more dire but somehow through the misery
I feel the heavenly quire

we must keep up the battle
to fight in our own way for human rights and justice
for this I pray

8th

were there birds in the mountains
did they stay by your side did they sing songs of hopefulness
did they help stem the tide

was it here that you saw
the lost lamb of your heart protected it loved it
never to part

9th

How do we merit love in such measure
are our sacrifices really enough even if we feel the pain
a lifetime through

Eternal joy eternal pain
these are the mainsprings of loss and of gain love and its minions
a lifetime through

10th

After we’ve settled the pain and the loss
we just give our love and send it out from the cross
uplifting love

falter we may get up and get on
no use in dwelling on what might have been we need to have more
uplifting love

Very best wishes – Denny Bradbury©💚

My Epiphany or Yours?

30 Monday Jan 2017

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Different Journeys – Same Star – Epiphany

Walking through the woods with soft decay under my feet,
winter trees bare and silent stand as they have for centuries,
lean labrador snuffles in the undergrowth loving new smells,
fallen branches lay like bones stripped bare by hungry deer.

Three men travel across the desert with the cold of night
deep within their bones, they do not notice as they lift their
eyes to the sky assiduously following the star that has led them
from their books and reckonings, their homes and comfort.

I look to the stars for life’s meaning, the often drab and
dreary places wherein we try to find a reason for so much
that is unexplained and often inexplicable to me in my
lack of understanding, I so want the story to be true!

Yet long ago those three wise and mysterious men thought
that they knew the meaning and went through danger to
find the answers to a myriad questions and worship at the feet
of one so small, but who brought Light to their existence.

Do the trees know what we do not? Does my dog suspect
the truth? Do we have to know what we cannot prove?
Is not feeling the Spirit enough? Can the Light not shine
brightly so that we shield our eyes and just trust and believe?

I wonder!

The Magi journeyed to find their King;
My journey too is within my own imagining;
But wherever we find the Truth and the Light
It is our reality and that is all we need to know.

Denny Bradbury©2016

Winter Haiku

01 Thursday Dec 2016

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Once more from my beautiful book of Haiku come two evocative winter Haiku: please enjoy them – so much from so little.

no escaping it –
I must step on fallen leaves
to take this path

Suzuki Masajo

This next one was written by the poet at the tower of London

into the ranks
of the suits of armour
deep winter

Arima Akito

Take care in the cold
keeping all hope alive with
the promise of spring

Denny Bradbury

With Shelley on National Poetry Day

06 Thursday Oct 2016

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I don’t have a favourite poem as so many poems speak to me in my varying moods.  Happy or sad, reflective or buzzing there are poems for every situation.  On National Poetry Day I decided that the world needs love so have chosen ‘Love’s philosophy’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?-

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

If we spread love then hate has less chance of gaining hold.
With best wishes – Denny Bradbury

The Beautiful Periwinkle

28 Wednesday Sep 2016

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Much folklore surrounds our plants and in this technologically advanced age many of the old sayings have been lost.  I love researching the meaning and use of plants.  If they are then linked to poetry all the better.  The periwinkle flower is one such plant. Traditionally the flower enhances the bond between husband and wife if they eat the leaves together. It was also used to help staunch bleeding.  In some places it was known as ‘cutfinger’ for its healing properties. Chewing the leaves was also said to prevent nightmares.

As the autumn draws on here in England my mind turns to spring and one of my favourite poems is: Lines written in early spring by William Wordsworth.  it is in this poem that he acknowledges that plants may have an appreciation of their surroundings:

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

Enjoy the air and revel in Nature’s bounty. Best wishes Denny Bradbury