Author: Ian Trimnell

Getting Older By Elaine Feinstein  The first surprise: I like it. Whatever happens now, some things that used to terrify have not: I didn’t die young, for instance. Or lose my only love. My three children never had to run away from anyone. Don’t tell me this gratitude is complacent. We all approach the edge of...

Badly By Lynn Ungar  Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. No one ever did something well without doing it poorly first. But if we’re going to get real, the chances of your ever getting really good are slim at best. The Olympics and the pro leagues fled with the end of your puberty. Maybe the...

Love and Playfulness By Hafiz  Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living In better conditions, for your mother and my mother were friends. I know the Innkeeper In this part of the universe. Get some rest tonight, Come to my verse tomorrow. We’ll go speak to the Friend...

It is Enough By Anne Alexander Bingham  To know that the atoms of my body will remain to think of them rising through the roots of a great oak to live in leaves, branches, twigs perhaps to feed the crimson peony the blue iris the broccoli or rest on water freeze and thaw with the seasons...

LIGHT By Hafiz  One day the sun admitted, I am just a shadow. I wish I could show you The Infinite Incandescence That has cast my brilliant image! I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The Astonishing Light Of your own being! Good evening and welcome to Evening Prayers That this...

Good morning everyone on this Wednesday morning. The days are getting longer but the weather is still somewhat chilly. Let us not get too miserable about it, we need all the seasons, so let us spend some time giving thanks for our beautiful world. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God, how excellent...

THE COLD By Wendell Berry  How exactly good it is to know myself in the solitude of winter, my body containing its own warmth, divided from all by the cold; and to go separate and sure among the trees cleanly divided, thinking of you perfect too in your solitude, your life withdrawn into your own keeping...

Wild Bees by John Clare  These children of the sun which summer brings As pastoral minstrels in her merry train Pipe rustic ballads upon busy wings And glad the cotters’ quiet toils again. The white-nosed bee that bores its little hole In mortared walls and pipes its symphonies, And never absent couzen, black as coal, That...

JUG by Elizabeth Burns    after Vermeer   A thin stream of milk poured from the heavy earthenware jug into a tureen this little slip of liquid tipping over the lip of the jug continually flowing from one vessel to another as we, all our lives, are being filled replenished and replenished Good evening and welcome to...

River by Ted Hughes  Fallen from heaven, lies across The lap of his mother, broken by world. But water will go on Issuing from heaven In dumbness uttering spirit brightness Through its broken mouth. Scattered in a million pieces and buried Its dry tombs will split, at a sign in the sky, At a rending of...

A prayer for the world   God of love and hope, you made the world and care for all creation, but the world feels strange right now. The news is full of stories about Coronavirus. Some people are worried that they might get ill. Others are anxious for their family and friends. Be with them and help...

Unbreakable Links By Mary Oliver  I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a...

Jacob and Esau By Pádraig Ó Tuama  One day I repented my resentment because I realised I’d forgotten to repeat it. For a while—no, for a long while—it was like a prayer, rising to the skies, morning after morning, like a siren that wouldn’t quiet. And then I remembered other things: the way I walk lighter...

The Word  by Zaffar Kunial  I couldn’t tell you now what possessed me to shut summer out and stay in my room. Or at least attempt to. In bed mostly. It’s my dad, standing in the door frame not entering – but pausing to shape advice that keeps coming back. “Whatever is matter,must enjoy the life.” He pronounced...