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TWO POEMS

Author

Pilgrimage
Chaucer caught me up a month before my birth,
sent a signal through the amniotic soup 
 to cue my DNA: remember, pilgrimage 
 is part of your green heritage. I dropped to earth
with boots and stick a faint prophetic sign,
advancing Zechariah’s promise to those aged
Jews. 
 Then Bunyan found me learning how to walk and talk,
he bent down, whispered ‘pilgrim soul’ and left me
slowly climbing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, until 
 I met the lost camino, dust and destiny 
 rough programmed into one word, ‘go’: then, ‘Go and plant
some seeds to grow the world a little bit more whole.’ 
 If Lindisfarn is on the edge, and Cuthbert’s Way 
 a bridge too far, make pilgrimage a heart screen play. 
Variation 1, doubling: Easy Praise Psalm 92
The righteous grow like palms, secure within the church
and flourish without qualms
or queries; ‘God won’t leave us in the lurch or fail to do his sums;
let every pagan search
and scowl; we’ll sing our psalms.’

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