A Kind of Epiphany. (Revised)

Between the tarmac and God
Nestles the herb garden,
A place to rest your feet,
A place to rest your mind.

Secularism is a bald faced lie,
Everything in the world is holy,
Every tree grown straight or crooked,
Every child lost in play.

I touch the wall of the old cathedral,
Even the grey stones seem alive,
They thrum with the lives of the men that carved them,
Not with the traffic roaring outside.

I have gone back to reading Cranmer`s Prayer Book,
Ancient words have the power to heal
Wounds cut deep by misapplied science
Into the skulls of ancient beliefs.

Secularism has lobotomised true history,
The history of workmen, not ruled by clocks,
In thrall to the church bells chiming the seasons,
The dance of the stars on wintry nights.

Enclosed by tarmac and the sculpted Word
I sit alone and write this poem,
Thoughts balanced between the roar of the traffic
And the silent prayers of the distant saints.

Silence perhaps is more powerful than thunder.
Silence perhaps cuts deeper than words.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 21st. 2017. 

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) The Wrong Picture. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) The Wrong Picture. (Revised).: The girl in this photograph, so like an old girl friend but, not her. The street in the wrong country. The sky too pale a blue.- Wind...

(1) Easter Maple.- revised. (2) The Ides of March.

                     1.

            Easter Maple.


This tree, the council workers left for dead
last autumn, when the pavements and the roads
of my local suburb were littered with the
sad farewells
            inevitable at the close of such a summer.


But now this tree, earmarked for the electric saw
heard annually in these streets in early spring,
especially after a violent storm has lifted
tiles and chimney pots, and smashed them down
                                                                  like toys
chucked out of doors by intolerant children.
This tree,
this small dead tree,
                                 this recollection of our first home,
Eden,
           (after the Fall when all the plants had died
and winter had become the only season),
is now embossed with miniature ripening buds
sticky to the touch and succulent with newness.


It is perhaps almost certain that this maple
has won outright its claim to flourish here
in the tiny square of earth, allocated by the
                                                          council,
outside my front room window.
And perhaps one future summer, sweltering like
                                                              last year,
 its full grown boughs will shelter the heads of
                                                               strangers
walking where I walked, a decade or two earlier,
concocting notes that morphed into this poem.


This tree, the council workers left for dead,
                                                      untended
may yet survive these elegant red brick houses
and grow up tall and straight and dark with power,
a restless power far older than mankind. -
I fold up my notebook and press it into my pocket.
The paving stones ring hollow under foot.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 15th. - 16th. - 22nd. 2017. 
------------------------------------------------------------------

                     2.

     The Ides of March.


Surprised by a wan red moon
the whole neighbourhood out of doors
Waiting for something to happen.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 15th. - 16th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Reckoning.(Revised)

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Reckoning.(Revised): And now the whole picture slides into focus slowly             just like a reflection in the water becoming meaningful to the dazzled ey...

The Reckoning.(Revised)

And now the whole picture slides into focus
slowly
            just like a reflection in the water
becoming meaningful to the dazzled eye
           as the waves subside into flatness,
and reeds stand upright like a line of soldiers.
                                                               

For a moment my whole life seems to flash
                                                     before me,
I am not dying, and yet I now must learn
to love simplicity, to clear the clutter from my
                                                                home,
to banish from my day arcane obsessions,
to make new every morning,
to love my neighbours more than love myself.
                                                           .

Self analyses is something that I have often
side stepped,
but for thirty years I have never truly loved,
I have only felt the wasp sting of desire,
and to admit this makes me grieve for those
                                                        I`ve hurt.
I have become a silent witness to my own life,
a hollow space, dug out and filled with echoes
by too many broken
                         lives.


But now someone is calling out to me to help her,
keening in the shadows of her sorrow,
                        imploring me to open up my heart.
And I must walk with her,
                                            confront her darkness,
walk with her and listen to her story,
                                          and learn to understand.


Tonight we sat together by the lakeside
and watched the pictures form, then break apart,
then form again once the breeze had settled.
"Are you really here with me?" She kept on
                                                            asking.
"Or are you just a shadow in the dark?"



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 21st. - 22nd. 2016.
March 9th. - 10th.- 11th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Bethlehem Angel.(New Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Bethlehem Angel.(New Version).: The plaster falls away, And gradually, Like a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, The gold angel is glimpsed Shimmering in the dusty...

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Door Stop. (New Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Door Stop. (New Version).: I have spent my life on the dark side of the moon when my name should have been up high in lights burning holes in the Broadway sky thro...