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Category: Remembrance

I am the tree the forest forgot

I am the tree the forest forgot

Published by Adrian North on 20 April 2021

I am the tree the forest forgot
Neither flowering nor fruiting
Forever failing and forlorn
Never reaching heavenward
But stunted standing
Suffocating in shadow and in sadness

I am the breeze the storm engulfed
In silence shackled
Stilled, suppressed
My quiet cry submerged
Forever censored,
By tempests’ callous cruelty

I am the trail the road removed
My history hidden
My hopes inhumed
Those who have walked my path
Lost to this witless world
While I wearied wane
Waiting wretched for my death

20/04/2021

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I Walk A Lonely Path
Ground Zero

Ground Zero

Published by Adrian North on 3 August 2018

What did they feel I wonder?
As they were swept away on that hideous wave.
That same wave that so terribly burnt the names
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Into our dull consciousness.

Were they afraid, did they feel terror
In those few seconds?
Did they think on their loved ones,
Did they know they were going to die,
Or were they just living their ordinary lives?

Were the children playing in the streets?
Were the mothers shopping, washing, talking?
Were the fathers working as they had always done?
Did they have brothers I wonder
Fighting at the front?

So many died in that instant, in that twinkling of an eye,
All on the orders of a solitary man so far away.
And so many of the undead
Suffered so terribly.
Was it worth it?

And now so many years later
What lessons have we learnt?
Could it ever happen again?
Will so many people die so needlessly
Or can we learn to live in peace?

13/01/1990

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The Selfless Flame

The Selfless Flame

Published by Adrian North on 27 July 2018

The candle in the corner splutters and dies
Fading slowly to dimness
Casting strange dancing shadows on the walls
Until it is engulfed by growing darkness
And only a glowing ember is left
Where its life used to be
And then that too disappears
Just the smoke remains
Forlornly forcing its way heavenward
And then it too is gone
And all is left in cold blackness.
Who had warmed their frozen hands
Around this self-same flame?
How many children had played late at night
In its warm and friendly light?
How much was done
Whilst this candle gave of itself
Unselfishly, unceasingly
Using what it had only for others
Until all was consumed
And it left us alone with the dark
The cold and lonely dark

04/08/1992

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A Homecoming

A Homecoming

Published by Adrian North on 23 April 2018

Suburban walls, suburban gardens,
Suburban bricks
Confront me
A decade on
So much has changed
Behind my suburban exterior
Am I as unrecognisable
As the scene before me?
As cold, as hard, as bleak?
So much changed
Beneath the same shell
Like these houses and shops
Am I, like them,
Decaying,
Rotting from within?
Have these ten long and weary years
So etched their pain
Into the very stones of my soul
That I may never return
To what I was?
But if I could
Would I?
Have I endured the torturing winds
And tormenting rains
For nothing?
Have I watched them erode my hard exterior
And expose my raw and bloody flesh
To the tempestuous elements
Just to say
“It is right,
Right to suffer so”?
No, no I will not
But stand and shout
At my new found strength
Swept clean by those who seek to hurt
And once more return
Return to this suburbia
Unlike those around
In their safe suburban lives
A newcomer
Returning to my fathers’ land
To these
Suburban walls, suburban gardens,
Suburban bricks

13/07/1990

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Passing By

Passing By

Published by Adrian North on 6 April 2018

How many years have these stones
Here stood?
Mute watchers of hurrying seasons
Here where once lived voices
‘Neath turf and heather roofed
Lie now open to storms hungry soul
Windows where eyes once gazed
On walls and ferns and burn below
Now lie open to the clouds
Like needle eye unthread
All is silent now
Except for winds harsh howl
Garden grazed by black faced sheep
Lichen grows on fireplace
Where peat a family kept warm
All is cold now
Untended
Unheeded
As I walk on

18/09/1998

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As you lay
For You

For You

Published by Adrian North on 16 March 2018

The radio plays
Gently in the background
Of my life.
The light throws dim shadows
Onto the dreary walls
Of my room.
It is so cold here now
Without you.
You have left an emptiness
That nothing fills.
An icy silence
Of nothing heard
Except my breathing
Harsh and halting.
The hours are long,
Time creeps past.
The hands of the clock
On the wall
Are resistant
To my will,
They are persistent
In their motionlessness.
I fill my life with boredom
And remembrances.
I warm my spiritless heart
With tales of happier days
And wait in frighted hope.
For you.

12/07/1990

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A life reborn (Some thoughts at Tushielaw)

A life reborn (Some thoughts at Tushielaw)

Published by Adrian North on 9 March 2018

Eagles cry, eagles haunt
Above moorland
Of grouse
And heather
And life
Myriad sheep trod paths
Lead me deeper
Into this delightful, deceptive freedom
On the edge
Of my existence
Fresh, cold, sharp winds
Buffet me
And roar
Deep gullies
In my soul
Cutting deep
They wound
And cleanse
And drive cobwebs
Long grown
From my being
And once again
I am me
And I am free

18/09/1998

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Winter Sunrise