Page 19 - BR September 2023 (1)

September 2023 September 2023

FIRST THURSDAY CLUB A Secret Place
(AUTUMN LEAVES) Scatter my ashes on meadows wide Cow parsley adorns the footpath like

lace
Under the bracken and heather I’ll hide
I worry about meetings every month. Have we got With rabbit, owl, fox sparrow and deer At this my own very secret place
everything we need? Volunteers, refreshments, Ramblers may tread and pass near by
speaker, and lastly when we have all arrived and To the end of all time with nothing to fear
set up I worry that no one will come. Last month Ian While I rest there, my soul on high
Ventham was the speaker and sure enough the helpers and food had arrived
including 36 visitors. Below beech and hazel and the mighty oak
For all time with god’s creatures,
Ian was talking about his recent trip to In sun, wind and rain, into the soil to soak sharing their home
India to research his Father in Law’s travels
during the Second World War. This was no The seasons will blend, leaves from In sprit, life like, always to roam
ordinary travelogue of just hotels and emeralds to red
tourist sites. This was a story starting with They fall in a mass, soft carpet to tread ‘neath the sky and the stars., on
an old black and white photograph meadows to rest
album found among his father In law’s For eternity, at the place I love best
effects after his death. This showed Through sunshine and showers, snowdfrift
pictures of places he had visited in India and drought
I go to my maker his peace to
Let modern developers be left in no doubt
discover
Its peace and its beauty, its mystery and
wonder With arms open wide, just as a
mother
no man has the right to ravish and plunder
So scatter my ashes on meadows
wide
From under my ashes comes forth threes This is my heaven, to be at god’s side
and plants

during the War. By researching Forever to grow, in the sunlight to dance
regimental records and a book Diana Phillips
written by a comrade the story of To rest ‘neath the leaves that rustle and
his war was reconstructed. bend
Ian and his family retraced his Blowing this way and that, with the way of
journeys and found many of the the wind
sites in the album and Scatter my ashes on meadows high
photographed them again 80
years later. More moving was Alongside the devil stone there I’ll lie
the story of the forgotten battles Overlooking my village, find church loved so
and the defence of India during well
the war from the Japansese.
One dreads to think of what Not for me under slab, my body to dwell

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