ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Available for over a year

Thought For The Day (On National Poetry Day) It’s time for Thought And there’s two minutes forty To put some glory In the morning’s 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’s deep wisdoms To speak for and against the absurd To admit the world-sorrow And not let it have the final word. It’s slipped between What The Papers Say And that taped section which (On any given day) Reports a sparrow’s falling A kingdom dividing; And the weather (Bad and changing). This daily anomaly Can’t be sermon And not quite homily, Preach and be damned But sound right about what’s wrong Mine for the good In the ore of the bad For a single pearl make a dive Say there’s a God: Or hint that there might be Keep the rumour alive. But don’t get ethereal Keep things reasonable Don’t 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’re 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’s hard to catch Other ways of seeing and being Of doing and living When you need To get going, And a bigger story’s breaking And stocks are tumbling Empires are crumbling And they’re announcing The fall Of kings and companies The start of wars And the whole world’s ending. The clock is ticking Everything atrophies And things fall apart. Dare you say There’s something lasting? You have mere moments To risk the invisible Back the un-provable Stake all on the intangible. Be still, and know There’s 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’s 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’re off and on our way And whatever you do, whatever you say Make it a Thought That lasts a day. Rhidian Brook 2015.