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You are here: Home / Blog / Poems from the Labyrinth
A labyrinth in grassland provides inspiration for poetry

Poems from the Labyrinth

3rd August 2017 By Nicky Stainton

Participants on July’s Labyrinth writing workshop, led by Beth Soule of Suffolk Poetry Society, have kindly agreed to share their poems written on the day. Thank you to everyone who came on the workshop and Beth for her creative leadership.

We feature three of the poems below. Look out for more later in the summer.

Walking the Labyrinth

 Walking the labyrinth with my fingers, sightless,

is difficult

Years of use have battered the nerves,

worn down the skin, made fingertips clumsy.

 

I think of Africans who feel the path in the dark

with their feet

They do not need a torch

Their feet, bare and sensitive,

notice small differences in terrain.

 

Long years of wearing shoes

and walking hard pavements

have worn away this sensitivity

Long years of exposure to urban noise

deadens the ears to quiet sounds

of the night

 

Long years of street illumination

make people fearful of the dark

unable or unwilling to see their way

unlit after nightfall.

 

Not able to see, not able to feel the path,

Are we the losers?

© Rosemary Jones 2017

 

Field Walk

Mind hurries with scurrying insects

bends with wind-blown grass

weaves between leaf, stem, petal

stretches with reaching boughs

 

feet tread uneven ground

feel the shifting balance

sense the change from sun-crisped grass

to the soft crumbling of mole-earth

 

skin feels the brittle scratch of dried stems

the tickle and twitch of flying beasts

the easing heat of afternoon

the breeze breath

 

heart beats with the pace of walking

lifts with the wind

slows to the gentle hum of bees

opens to the bright of buttercup gold.

© Beth Soule 2017

 

The Labyrinth’s Question

What shall I do tomorrow?

The Resolution

Go home, little girl, at dawn,

with your shell and your flaxen hair.

Go home to your grandmother,

ask her.  She knows, understands what it is you seek.

She knows your heart but does not bend with age.

You can.

This is the Wisdom of Hare.

Go home, do not stay away.

Do not stay away, with a shell in your hand,

a song in your heart – but no hearth.

Go home.

Sit with her, hold her hand,

buy her milk and fill her days

with cake and laughter.

When it gets hard and your grandmother

shivers and moans, feel the shell

in your hand, remember

the days on the sea and

the hours on the beach, and do not call me

Hare.

The hedgerow is not for you little girl

Go home and hug your grandmother.

© Sue Benbow – 2017

 

Filed Under: Blog

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