Pat Sutherland

Glasgow, Scotland

 

Literary biography:  After early retirement from teaching I wrote for public services for a number of years.  I have had poems published in the magazine Dawntreader and been shortlisted by Grey Hen Press.  I write poetry as therapy having been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer six years ago.  Having begun, I am quite unable to stop!  I find inspiration in your online features and poetry.

 

Poem completed 26th May 2020

 

 

Lesson

 

A snowless winter, but Arctic winds

whistled throat-searing coughs

through our letterbox;

we whooped and barked

singly and in unison

buoyed up only by our trust

in a healing Spring.

 

Sure enough, relief came with the crocuses;

our voices returned;

we put a noxious

season behind us,

seeing ahead

sunlit outings, picnics,

holidays.

 

But just as roadside hawthorn hazed with green

and blackthorn blossom lit the school fence,

just as our world was opening

we had to close our doors.

 

Nature has bloomed this spring

as never before

while Death,

laughing at the irony,

rampages through sunlit air

reaping a baleful harvest.

 

We are chastened,

fearing the future,

our old assurance shaken

our assumptions in tatters

the bedrock of our beliefs

cracked asunder.

We will live tentatively, grateful,

hoping to do better.