[Music]
how amazing is this stay the spider’s
web cast its shadow play lilies sing and
sprays redwoods and broad oaks hold sway
write berries for beaks and lips patches
of white lace all set on this delicate
plate we at your table but guess I’ve
been writing poetry for the last 13
years shortly after my wife’s death and
cancer I knew there were things that
wanted to come out of me within the year
poetry started happening there was very
rudimentary and it took time to learn
the poem is a little bit like a child
you wanted to stand on its own two feet
and you can’t rush it
you wanted to sail on its way into the
world so that it can live out its own
destiny and hopefully touch people in
some way
growing up in Israel in at the beginning
years the majesty of life was in front
of me at all times the hills then were
full of poppies and sheep snakes
beautiful wildflowers moving to England
when I was nine years old I didn’t know
how to read or write English so I was
forced to listen very carefully and I
developed an ear for sound duckling
flaking silvery Brown cracked pepper
holy cleft trunk limbs hanging by a
friend thicket of an old unpruned apple
tree rich leafy mould stewing in your
mossy bass home 2,100 years of following
to bear everything sweet fruit 100 years
of hollowing to bear everything
sweet fruit
[Music]
when my poetry comes from my mind in
falls flat it has to come from somewhere
deeper it has to carry an emotional
truth some come to me in dreams some
come in silence many many come when I’m
on a walk
the natural world gives me so much just
the air on my face changes the mood and
then as I look closely every day that
something else is happening easy to
forget that in fact life is very fluid
affair very recently I was due to give a
house concert in two days before I found
myself walking into emergency in
hospital and being told I had cancer so
facing death and loss are kind of
preliminary qualifications for writing
poetry in my case the suffering I’ve
been given I haven’t thought it but it
certainly played its role in
housecleaning creating a space to other
things that come in spite the raging and
fateh stations of my ego grace can peer
through a parent in a stable
now in what I believe is my last stage
of life I’m able to say I’m happy better
you know this is what I’ve been given
because every day count may be grumpy I
may be tired and so on but I’m alive you
know and there’s a lot to appreciate on
a daily basis see of funny faces greets
me they gently wave
familiar friends rise once again for the
pleasure of murmuring winged creature
each petal of rain like you or me each
golden home Center a heart like mine
a raid in unpretentious glory
I’m afraid open to greens brain the
lowest blade belts bring again to keep
their blessings on another
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
you
[Music]
