Frances-Ann Norton: Poetry

 Five Pandemic Poems 1. Solitary 2. At the bird sanctuary 3. Writing practice 4. Closing the chapter 5. Icon eyes                                              Image from Unsplash Open Source. 1.  Solitary  I could be a fifty-three-year-old woman. Living post-cancer. In a world where cancer is suddenly not the biggest, baddest virus on the Block. All the emotions I dealt with about a growing death within me. Harbouring an enemy in my breast. My habits during illness of self-imposed quiet, solitary days. The lore of stay home, stay safe. Now everyone experiences this in the time of lockdown, in a pandemic.                                              Blackbird Rainbow, by Frances Ann Norton 2.  At the bird sanctuary Its so hard growing up, my beautiful brave girl. The moment you were put into my arms after a long labour I knew you were a fighter, an old soul, determined and singular. You withstand your greatest health burden with magnanimity, dignity and stoic

                                                              sketchbook drawing by Frances-Ann Norton Red Sail   I have often stood on the canal bank in a reflective frame of mind and seen barges, rowing boats and motor boats pass on the Leeds Liverpool canal. This one though is a small wooden boat. The red sail like a parasol catching the sun in its sheeting. Making it gleam and light up like a flaming arrow in a Viking burial at sea. The people in the boat are guardians of the dead travel guides for the After World. Angels not of this world. Our time here is so short - over in a season. The quartzite gravel on the canal-bed cannot contend with the number of souls of our loved ones. From the beginning of time right back to Adam and Eve. Our bodies grow frail and fail and our souls loosen from our feeble and unreliable bodies and set off on their journey to the light, to love, to eternal oneness. Just step onto the red sailboat and we will take

  Saturday music school   Little boys, waiting boys. Not playing shops today. No, today they have a five second recording device. They have spent the last half an hour recording funny noises, playing them back and gigging. Rehearsal music from the Lion King continues in fragments. Mums chat. Children laugh, run, bob and weave round the chairs. Snacks are distributed. “Gang Gang Style” drifts across the waiting room. A new boy has joined, glad to escape his hovering parents. The brass-band strikes up “Just can’t wait to be king”, the boys wait… for now. [image Unsplash. Poem first exhibited at Shipley Underground Market, March/April 2023].

  At the Meeting To stand here with you, Orans [praying] I lift up my hands and praise with you sing joyfully with you be community and know that this is home with you feel the presence of God in those around the table be assured by words of prophecy … “Walk my path”. “I am with you”. “Open your heart to me”. “You are not alone”. …this is peace to the soul. Here stand teachers, parents, children, students, chaplains. Each person brings them-self in service of the community. Each speaks and is heard, is seen, known, loved and is held in prayer Praise to you Oh my Lord for our Sister Communitas. Who banishes loneliness and connects your people. [Image Unsplash. Poem first published in the Bripper March 2023]/  

  Bric-a-brac of my Heart:   Walking up Horsforth High Street, how out of breath in the January gales I am. Winded by the steep hill, blown along with last autumn’s skeletons. Our mission to slough through winter mud in search of cake. We pass a fantasy junk shop, every item bid for, collected and arranged in vignettes. Memories of dancehall days and imperial measurements, glamorous film stars in contrasting monochrome, toys of yesterday chosen with hauntology and nostalgia. I can imagine each item in my hand, in my house, in my studio. these objects are discards from other peoples lives come and gone, no more than a watch in the night. I turn away reluctant to fill more of my time and eyes with consumables of a bygone era. I fix my sight on something other than stuff. Still working that out. What would the junk shop of my life look like? My bygone fragments are – jobs I’ve left, relationships that slipped away, places I used to live. I let these thing

You are my Rock   You are my rock, my High Tower You are my fortress, my butterfly You are my rainbow, my quiet breeze You are my reflective rock-pool, my blue sky You are my soft day, my springtime breeze You are my mighty oak, my buttercup You are my front door, my safe house You are my full stomach, my rested head You are my job, my labour, my work You are my friend, my counsellor, my love You are a hazelnut in the hand of your servant Julian You are the inspiration of the writer Augustine You are the author of chaos to order on the first day You are the potter, the sculptor, the artist. [Image from Unsplash open source. Poem first published in the Maltfriscan Newsletter, The Bripper, January 2021].

  Cocky Trumpets Our lives weave around each other, sometimes we are in harmony, other times not. Jesus says – I work off the beat, and on the beat, I am the beat and all rhythms are me. When you work off beat, I am with you in that discord, uncomfortable place. I am with you when you feel everyone else in the room is playing a different tune.   Life can feel anxious, full of mental health unwellness, danger, like everything is going too fast. Jesus says, I’m walking with you in all that you are,   because all that you are is my child, lovable, whole, uncompromised.   The Din of social media, of the twittering of twitter, the fake news of facebook, the inanety of Instagram, Jesus says – Angels get out your trumpets, tumble down the cliff of heaven, create a wall of Holy noise so that my friends can think and just be, so the only interruptions are wholesome, upbuilding words, healing exchanges, community building communication.   Our relationships wit

  A Christmas Specular or Mirror poem This poem is written from the perspective of Sister Water. As St Francis says “Be praised my Lord, through Sister Water, she is useful and humble and precious and pure”   Give me peace. I lay down at the bottom of a riverbed looking up through the green, clear, water. Up through the aqua ripples, up to the sky, contemplating as clouds slowly move across. Dawn parts to reveal full day, and afternoon atomises into cool evening. The dew falls, and the sun sets behind a green hill, clustered with trees, the moon rises in the East. In a cave on the hill, a refugee couple labour through the night. The hardest, most unknowable work a woman can do. At last she holds her baby. She has sewn soft blankets and coverings to keep him warm. She holds him so close. Everyone is asleep now as dawn breaks, it has been a long and difficult night. In the cave on a hill they rest. Gently neighbours call in to offer joy and congratulations.

  Prayer to St Margaret of Antioch, at her well in Binsey   Grant me a journey in a carp. Let me dive into the belly of the fish. Let the carp dive deeper into the algae greened waters. Let me be housed like the child at the centre of a Matroshka doll.   Take me to the silent tranquility of your well -deepness. Let the cool autumnal waters cure my malady. Afterwards let me be a joyful ex-crutch user, striding strongly away. Looking for the winding of the rivers to follow. Watching as past antiquity layers the present.   This path was once a Medieval layby, pilgrim’s path, now over built by the Western By-Pass. Margaret’s Holy Well at Binsey waits as it has through millennia. And Saint Margaret is a long way from her home in Pisidia.   She sits contemplatively on the steps by the Holy Well staring into the darkness. Her long reliquary hair braided and coiled like a sailor’s knot. Leaning forward she drops the hammer she is so often depicted as holding

  Morning Blessing Canticle   Praise to you O my Lord as I stand on Monument Moor, on a beautiful summers day. For the dew in the grass ears and on the wildflowers, For the urban meadow back lit so beautifully by the morning sun, For colour and intense sap green, the grasses glow and grow as I watch. For a group of back birds and thrush hopping over each other to get to the ground bugs. For the places where we live, as I look over the redbrick back-to-backs of Quarry Mount and bless the homes of all the people there and childhood friends.   Praise to you O my Lord for schools and shops and houses and crossings for dog walkers and bike riders, van guys and mums with children in buggies and school kids at the bus stop, for women in summer dresses with lunch bags in the hands and tradesmen in shorts and caps, for people with rucksacks and handbags and shoppers.   Praise be to you O my Lord as I stand on Monument Moor and I think of the history around me t

  Our Lady, Untier of Knots   The complexity and interweaving of the threads of my life like un-brushed hair So many snarls and snares In the heart of the knots is woven the fluff of life Skin cells, muck, a green-fly, spring herbage, North windblown bits Here in this silent moment Our Lady Untier of Knots sits patiently, cross legged My head in her lap. My tangled hair like the snaggle of my thoughts In companionable contentment I give Her permission To let me loose untie all my knots free me from the snares of the fowler. One day all my knots will be untied. Untethered I will slip from this world of tangles Relieved, silken, undone. [First published in the Bripper - Maltfriscan Newsletter, June 2023].