Poems

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Poems

I SURRENDER

She turns

She stares

And fixes me with sea-blue eyes,

Enquiring, questioning, searching

Through a blurred reality.

Unseeing, yet seeing all,

She pierces through my barricade

Exploring my deepest soul,

Stirring memories hoped forgotten.

No troubled past preys on her,

No desperate hopes distract her.

Only this, only here, only now.

Tender, soft and warm,

She guides me to her world;

A world of spirit

A world of innocence

A world of simplicity.

Only this, only here, only now.

So young,

Yet possessing the wisdom of centuries.

So small,

Yet her soul houses the soul of the universe.

So I surrender,

I cannot fight such love

Such purity.

I surrender

To a wiser one

Unknowing, yet knowing all.

Yet, who is she,

This gentle healer?

This beautiful soul?

Who is she,

This angel of light?

Then,

In the stillness of the night

I remember.

She is my daughter.

Sarah Settelen July 1997

Clare Nash - Ellie's Auntie January 2000

Ellie Whispers

My wide blue eyes can see you now

as you still to the music of the garden.

I have heard and seen

so many secret things.

I have opened all the windows and doors

in the palace of listening.

I have heard everything.

You talk of me so much,

as you always did, knowing

who and what I was.

Together we have sown the seed

for listening in the gardens.

See what the whispers have already done!

You have seen in the settling

The mountains start to move.

Thank you for trusting me to teach you,

for looking with unseeing eyes

into the meaning of my sighs

in the fluting of the leaves.

Thank you for not rushing by,

for turning your ear to the cheer of the wind

and the tremble of a silver globe of rain

in the tremor of a breeze.

I am the blossom of all who listen.

I can see the little lamplighters

and the whisperers of the way.

I am with you.

Everything will happen

in the music of the garden

Philip Wells March 2000

Poet in Residence

Cheyne Day Centre

Sophie Nash - Ellie's Cousin

Toby Nash - Ellie's Cousin