Macmillan Cancer Support

Each and every day, 822 people in the UK are told the devastating news that they have cancer. Macmillan Cancer Support aims to improve the lives of people living with cancer, as well as supporting family members, friends and carers. Macmillan’s increasing range of services, include nurses, doctors and other health professionals, cancer care centres, specialist cancer information and help with money.

Right now, Macmillan are only able to reach one in two people who need this vital support. It is their ambition to be able to reach everyone. All of these services are only possible thanks to people’s generosity and every penny raised by the sale of Soul Feathers really will make a difference.

If you have questions about cancer you can contact Macmillan on 0808 808 00 00, or visit www.macmillan.org.uk

Candlemas Bell – Oz Hardwick

They said she came to soften the Fall,
feather-white on hard fields, frozen
days giving way to warmth, a promise
that nothing but kindness will last forever.

A comforting thought for those who believed,
but now confined to dog-eared books,
quaint antiquarianism and cul-de-sacs
of the internet, stumbled upon by chance.

Yet, as winter tips imperceptibly
to longer days, she comes again,
lifting her glass to parched lips,
saying nothing, promising all.

OR VIA PAYPAL

UK

EUROPE

REST OF WORLD

The race of life – Maria Gornell

 
I was always running (away)
from self
for cover
fleeing the essence of I

Running from past
sprinting from future
giving the present a run for its money

Running like coward
or a bull dragged by its angry horns.

Running into dead ends
one way stop signs
forced backwards into
my own erected walls.

Running in fear
from time
in thoughts; cradling attachments like bones

Truth too pure
self too damned
running and running
desperate to elude
this light inside.

Realisation came in revelations
I despised – truth dawned
running – never moving
frozen on spot

I saw my running was leading
nowhere
as I fled with fearful eyes
into a harsh reality.

Now I am running – running across fields
forward – full circle back into self

Running and running for dreams
transforming my illusions
of reality.

Running into the future
full speed I greet the gift
of the present

racing into the light.

This poem about running for the 5k race for life in aid of Cancer Research in July.

A Sawdust Day – Dawn Bauling

It is a sawdust day
when the edges of life
lie at my feet, useless,
roughly chipped and grated,
ready to be blown by others’
footsteps in the wind.

It is a sawdust day
when words lose their taste
and I can’t concentrate
on anything but husks,
desperately seeking spice
but finding only rice.

It is a sawdust day
when possibility pops
before I can catch it
or stop it lap dancing
provocatively out of reach,
teasing me with rainbows.

But I will not be choked
and can hope for more than
raw skin and tasteless crusts
as the carpenter works.
For he will send me chilli
flowers to scatter in the dust.

From Loud Voices in the Quiet Child (2008) – Indigo Dreams Publishing

Rooted – Minal Sarosh

While recuperating,
I felt rooted like a tree.
No! I haven’t turned into one.
But, it seems I too need the sun,
to calcify my bones into fossils.

My hands are not branching out.
But, still, I drain the sea
from the glass of water.
Waves rise and my breath surfs.

The whirling fan overhead
rakes up a storm in the silence,
wants me to shed my yellow leaves
for new ones to shoot out.

My ill body digs into the mattress,
trying to reach the soil
clinging to the roots of the tree
long dead in this wooden bed.

I still say, I’m not a tree,
but have to wait like one,
for the earth, water, air and sun
to come together in me.

Nature is a stingy, thrifty housekeeper,
remixing, recycling everything
stacked in her refrigerator
and she wastes nothing in me.

But, still, unlike the tree,
there’s something in me
which cannot remain rooted,
which floats freely like the clouds.

And the cawing of the crow
on the window sill, tells me
my thoughts have escaped
on its black wings.