From these notes …
does it have to do with what happened in the past?
or what happens in the future?
it’s to do with both
it’s a bit complex for everyone because it’s a human thing
well we are that’s true
i guess what you’re saying is we all need to show kindness and compassion to each other from now on
Mil Williams, 27th March 2024, Chester UK
… has come this poem:
the human loom
we're all bones at heart
and blood in marrow
and on the narrow and straight
few of us are able to wait
because all of us worth anything
are human as human can be
and it's to sing out proud and loud
the facts of all our frailties
and overwhelming loyalties
to things we barely understand
even when we're hand-in-hand
and thinking we're close
as ever we've ever been
where love is a rendition
of all that we've seen and saw and more:
and everything and everyone
then becomes this beautiful wondrous one
where sat upon that mountain high
we slowly allow ourselves to cry
because it's true that you and me
is only a small part of the whole equation
like the equators of reason
and emotion's own avaricious longitudes
and the earth of incessant latitudes
marking the x that tells us where
our humanity actually lies
and thus finds itself in turn
at the crossroads and junctions
and intersections of all these truths
which confuse us mightily
and hurt us sometimes tragically
as we attempt to duly understand
the people we have in front of us
and next to us
and inside our heads
as if sometimes they're trying
and as if sometimes they're dying
and occasionally as if
it's ourselves who do the killing
like the seeping of slow leak
out of deeply political mistakes
because politics above all
is what you and i and all of us
do in family on each other
as we attempt to be faithful to the other
and as we sometimes only wound the lover
even as friendships are what counts all told
and their courage (sometimes sold) leads us clearly
to embolden those we see all too dearly
as we prefer to be seen
without wearisome sighs
but simply out of zero disguise:
a transparent good
recovered as we should
and leaving us cleansed
and totally expunged
in newly wondrous
sister- and brotherhoods
where our humanity finally triumphs
and wins over
the hardest of hearses
and the maddest of curses
into a much better place
of more satisfactory race
as we decide once again
after terrible times and pain
to reach out each other's hands
as bands of families
and good women and men
choosing eventually to offer
as gifts almost sacredly proffered
being presented to the tribal heights
where the compassion of the mind
and the kindness of the signs
that once upon a time
did break like shallow refrain
and now can only reencounter
like meeting grand and mealtime fine
and bread that's broken at eventides
in joyful remembrance of all that's true
where you and me and me and you
mean many more than just us two
because after all
and when grand they call
our lives do impact
on all the rest
and whilst sometimes it's death we wish to find
if death i embrace thinking just for myself
the reality of life
is that none is an island as another man said
no human at all
at all at all at all
and all our actions remain quite connected
and all our fears are finally dissected
and all our love is inevitably shared
where in the end our family overcomes
instead of permitting
that it might be overwhelmed
forever and always
lined and creased
like the ageing man i once did feel
and the life even recently
i wanted to be deceased
because that's what it is
and that's what it's been
as being or not became the mightiest question
and dearest shakespeare was right as right
in this so true and in other matters too ...
so all that's left for me to say
is that compassion is a virtue
and kindliness the best
and whilst the words of forgiveness do wonders
what's the very best of all
are the hugs that come naturally
after decades of sadnesses
and the embraces quite lost
to all of time's winds
and to the bad and wilful foolishness
of hatred's forces grossly mad
where insistences on any part
just served to break finally
the hearts of all our rivalries
where they did only disperse
like sounds of gears grinding in reverse
instead of all these years
being voices of gorgeous seers
able to come together and around
tables of leisure and agreeable sounds
because exactly this is what i now give you
and exactly this is what i would like for you
and exactly this is where i'm now waiting
and just this very thing
is where no hesitation
remains to my mind
and only love is what i now feel
for everyone and all around
where everything is now unbound
and life perhaps may finally resume
as if a beautiful tapestry of light
made by the sight of human loom
mil's page 