Two Flats

Some flats have an air of welcome, everything about them says

They’re the scene of joy and gladness, witnesses to happy days.

There’s an air of peace and calmness, which pervades the atmosphere,

So that everyone who enters feels there is contentment here.

Other flats are cold and cheerless, lacking any thing which would

Indicate they are the sit of innate kindliness and good;

It’s not the temperature is lower, rather it’s the lack of care,

For the world and other people, that is surely missing there.

Travelling in Fog

A blanket of fog lies all over the land,

Obscuring the buildings, save those near at hand.

No chance to admire all the landscapes we pass,

The fields within view are incredibly sparse.

Everything’s lost in a mass of pure white,

With none of the sun’s golden rays within sight.

and yet there’s a beauty which can’t be denied,

In a dense fog which covers the whole countryside.

The First Week of the New Year

A week of the New Year’s just passed by,

And I’m amazed just how the days fly,

With never sufficient hours per day

To let most people both work and play.

Most lives proceed at a frantic pace,

Where work takes up the major space

Around which they must find the time,

As up the corporate ladder they climb,

To run a home and family too,

Keep up their hobbies, learn something new,

Play their part in the neighbourhood,

Allocate time for doing good.

Life is so busy; for many it’s rare

To sit and relax, for they’ve no time to spare.

Stress Today

People might be much more happy if they could avoid the stress

That’s become a part of living, though there should be less and less,

For today we’re so much richer; food is plentiful and cheap;

Housing, too, is so much better, though rents can be rather steep.

Illness now is not the worry that it could be in the past,

When the cost of any treatment for the poor could be too vast.

Unemployment’s not the problem that it always used to be –

It’s a source of stress and worry of which people now are free.

But today much stress arises not from economic need,

But the pace of life in general and the pressure to succeed,

Which today in many people has a very bad effect,

Making them so much less happy than at first one might expect.

Lengthening Days

Though the days are getting colder, they are lengthening each day

By some minutes morn and evening, til midsummer comes out way;

Though it’s hard at first to notice there is light for longer now,

Soon it will become apparent, as the hours to nature bow,

With dark evenings and mornings being replaced by shining sun,

And it is again quite clear, the move to summer has begun.

Opus Anglicanum at the V & A

Opus Anglicanum is a fabulous display

Currently appearing at the well-known V & A,

Featuring embroidery from medieval times,

With levels of the beauty which for every artist chimes.

The stitching is amazing, and the skills required immense,

For these items can be called great works in every sense.

Produced by men and women, for the most part for the church,

They’ve been brought together via a comprehensive search

In abbeys and museums, in the UK and abroad,

Till they all together formed a veritable hoard

Of quite exquisite chasubles and copes from days long past,

All produced in London, which were fortunate to last

Up until the present, though with signs of wear and tear

Which after seven hundred years would obviously be there.

One thing on which all visitors would certainly concur,

Is just how talented and skilled those ancient workers were.

Winter Snow

Winters come and winters go,

But here we rarely see the snow

That blankets all the towns up north,

So people have to sally forth

Dressed fro proper winters when

Each year they see the snow again.