蜜芽传媒

Thought For The Day (On National Poetry Day)
It鈥檚 time for Thought
And there鈥檚 two minutes forty
To put some glory
In the morning鈥檚 story,
To make something meaningful
Of what is topical.
To see the spiritual
In all this material.
Time to get the words right
To set the world straight
To give a different take
And shed a different light
To kick against the pricks
Of the daily grind.
To grab a truth worth hearing
To have a quiet word
Amidst the cut and thrust
Of opinion and cross-question.
To offer reflections
From Faith鈥檚 deep wisdoms
To speak for and against the absurd
To admit the world-sorrow
And not let it have the final word.
It鈥檚 slipped between
What The Papers Say
And that taped section which
(On any given day)
Reports a sparrow鈥檚 falling
A kingdom dividing;
And the weather
(Bad and changing).
This daily anomaly
Can鈥檛 be sermon
And not quite homily,
Preach and be damned
But sound right about what鈥檚 wrong
Mine for the good
In the ore of the bad
For a single pearl make a dive
Say there鈥檚 a God:
Or hint that there might be
Keep the rumour alive.
But don鈥檛 get ethereal
Keep things reasonable
Don鈥檛 peddle consolation
Or the best available illusion
Tell a truth, but tell it slant
If not truth then something equal to it.
Make sense of the din,
The savagery, the wonder and triviality,
If you can.
Think of the listeners
Put yourself in their ears
The invisible throng,
Half listening, heckling,
Shaving, commuting.
You鈥檙e background noise,
To all this thrum
A still, small voice vying
With all the striving.
Truth and platitude sound alike to someone not listening.
The world is dying
To hear something better,
But at this time of morning
It鈥檚 hard to catch
Other ways of seeing and being
Of doing and living
When you need
To get going,
And a bigger story鈥檚 breaking
And stocks are tumbling
Empires are crumbling
And they鈥檙e announcing
The fall
Of kings and companies
The start of wars
And the whole world鈥檚 ending.
The clock is ticking
Everything atrophies
And things fall apart.
Dare you say
There鈥檚 something lasting?
You have mere moments
To risk the invisible
Back the un-provable
Stake all on the intangible.
Be still, and know
There鈥檚 a place
A three-minute space
(The time it takes to boil an egg)
To hear a different voice, another noise
Clear your throat (Yes, it鈥檚 live)
Speak of more
Than what we simply see and hear,
The something, not the nothing.
No need to start a creed, or lay a law
Say what you think this life is for.
Give some grist,
Blow a breeze, throw a seed
From your studio chair,
From this Kingdom of the air.
Announce good news is near
Before we鈥檙e off and on our way
And whatever you do, whatever you say
Make it a Thought
That lasts a day.
Rhidian Brook 2015.