STRENGTH

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A selection of pieces of spontaneous, 'raw' writing that emerged in one session of the weekly Writers Group I run online.

Each title came from an object or image brought by each writer that for them in some way symbolises STRENGTH.

 

 

STANDING TOGETHER

 

Standing together

Courageous little snowdrops push forth

Against the odds

To herald hope

And promise pure white innocence

Standing together

 

Standing together

Fragile little children, terminally ill

Corralled into the letter “Z”

To please cameras

No compassion for their pure white innocence

Made to be standing together

 

The snowdrops are free

They do not stand in a “Z”

They are simply standing together

As they choose to be

Courageous, innocent, free.

 

By Sam

 

 

Standing together in pink. Playing in harmony with our drumsticks to counter the heartbreak all around us. From little acorns oak trees grow, standing together in the forest. A student from Africa shows me how to make corn fritters to his mother’s recipe and with a wave of his hand there he is with his fellow students standing together. Old letters bring hope and ease between us as we gaze up at the stars and hug. It doesn’t matter whether we are pink, purple, navy blue or blood red, with or without lipstick, in Burgundy or Hollywood, Africa or France, we are standing together making music with our drumsticks.

 

By Jenny

 

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Snowdrops stand together

Gathering hearts healing strength

Seeding sunflowers

By Diane

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GATHERING HEARTS

 

Gathering hearts, multi-coloured, orange, yellow, sparkling in the dark, beneath a velvety sky, a kaleidoscope of gathering hearts, frittered around, lain beneath trees, written with lipstick, telling of childhood innocence and heartbreaks, stupid blokes and dark stillness. They stood together, gathering hearts, before dawn, in the luxury of a silver sky, gathering hearts that were full, no holes, dreaming of childhood innocence and blue mountains. There were messenger pigeons fluttering through with paper swirls of gathering hearts, to brighten the dark days and bring strength to the crowds. Gathering hearts, we sparkled in the luxury of yellows and oranges, the stillness, a drumstick roll, a tree, a fritter of gathering hearts, flying through the dark, aiming for the mountains, the sky, the earth.

 

By Jane Saunders

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RESISTANCE

 

Resistance. The French Resistance. Fighting in the mountains in all weathers. Resistance to dictatorship, resistance to being told what to think, to conformity, resistance to brainwashing. Resistance to despair and negativity and hopelessness. Resistance to unthinking group think. Reading beneath the words. Propaganda from all sides. Resistance to capitulation. Resistance to fear. Resistance to a world of warring and hatred and oppression and territorial conflict and power over. Solidarity with one another, mothers and children, parents and families, the peaceful majority who want to live our lives in harmony and in love.

 

By Jenny

 

What is the colour of resistance?

Red, violet, pink, lipstick pink.

And what colour is compassion?

Or is compassion a voyage?

Resistance, adrift in a sea of questions,

a sea of answers,

Resistance, gaining confidence or

sinking like a stone.

Stupid to suppose that Mummy can fix it.

To imagine compassion flowing from

that bloke, as from a stone.

I examine my fingernail.

All is brown, black.

And what is the colour of resistance?

 

By Jane K 

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HEALER

 

So the one aiming the arrow, shooting the arrow, is also the healer.  How can that be?  It can be, if he decides it can.  He can choose where the arrow goes.  Can turn it just a few degrees, or rest it down.

 

In his quiver there are lots of arrows.  What do they have written on the flights?  How does it feel to him, to stretch the bowstring tight and make the choice of letting it go?  Of sending his arrows out into the thick of it.

 

What would it take, then, for the one shooting the arrow to become the healer?

 

By Jane K

 

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Healer, wounded healer

Wild man, fire your flaming arrow

Strength to summon with flame

Shoot across the sky

A flag to signal gathering hearts

Those longing to waylay the danger

Of an ocean dividing where love has met resistance

Healer, wounded healer

Strike your feet upon the earth

May all Achilles Heals be called  by the magic sparks you set in motion

May they come to be standing together

Healer, wounded healer

May the egg-shells no longer be feared

May truths be told

And forgiveness offered as a new reality

Healer, wounded healer

Be the awakener of the gold within beyond internal tidelines

May their longing give spurt to the mass of sunflowers

Waiting to bloom, standing together, signalling to the lost

Those still stranded on pirate islands

Captives of the brainwashed-up tyrants

Healer, wounded healer

Call out your insights near and far

All colours are welcome

Let each wounded healer join the dance

Strike their feet and souls upon the Earth

Into a great fire of gathering hearts

And blanket Gaia with a velvet duvet of love.

 

By Sam

 

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STRONGER TOGETHER

 

We spend so much time alone and yet we really are stronger together. That could be you and me - it could be England, France, Germany. If we can just hold our hands and our hearts together in peace we will prevail. We are stronger together: in a spirit of co-opeation, a spirit of openness and acceptance. 

Two little girls pushing their beds together at night and falling asleep holding hands. Two sad, frightened little girls. Are they stronger together? Who is watching over them? Is it their parents, their policemen, their politicians, their armies, their God? 

Stronger together they say. There is strength in numbers. Stronger together.

 

By Sandra Percy

 

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SUNFLOWER

 

Sunflower, opening in the morning, standing strong in the sunlight, turning into the warmth, sunflower, its stem sturdy and wide, sunflower, strong and resilient, a sign of summer, rows of their bright faces turned to the sun in fields in France and Italy, Sunflower, seeds left to grow another set next year, loved by the birds, easy to grow, standing tall. Sunflower, the shape, the petals, yellow, orange, deep red. This sunflower, for opening jars, purple and round and strong. Rubbery. Helps the tight squeeze on the lid, helps to turn the screw, helps to lift and ease the way, helps to find the deep contents waiting in the jar. Sunflower, a flower for the sun, for sun-drenched days, for the hope of warmth, a flower even a child can grow, anywhere, in a pot, in the soil, whatever soil you have. Sunflower…..

 

By Jane S

 

 

Sunflower set off at night. The sky was dark, dark blue but occasionally, a shooting star shot its dusty pink trail across the sky. Sunflower made her journey in a lipstick red boat with a luminous white sail. She sailed for many days and many nights.

Finally, she spotted far away on the horizon, an island rising out of the sea. She took a deep in-breath and steered her little boat towards the safe harbour of this remote island. 

Her boat slid across the shingle and came to a stop. Sunflower stepped ashore and smiled. Her gaze followed the line of the shore, looked left and right. The moon was high in the sky illuminating a ghostly world of mountain, trees and lakes. Like a picture in an old photo album. Sunflower smiled again.

 

By Sandra Percy

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