One of the less obvious things that was so painful about what happened with the old blog, was that all these people read it, people I'd never wanted to read it, and not one of them said anything about the content other than that my responsibility for its appearance in the public domain was to be regarded as 'gross misconduct'. I myself thought there was some pretty fine writing in there. So, in honour of my three years' posting at the old address, and in honour of 18 months' hard work for the old organisation, whose payroll I leave today, and in honour of all the children we worked with, here once again is a poem of which I am proud.
Taking God to Friday Assembly
after Kerry Hardie
I took God to Friday assembly,
had him sit beside me at the back of the hall
in the empty hush before the children came in,
whispered that's the head teacher and that's the team points cup
and this, now, is Mozart's oboe concerto, very quiet,
and a slide on the OHP to tell the children it's Mozart,
to ask them can they hear the oboe?
Look God! I hissed here come the children now!
and God watched with me as, class by class
in blue sweatshirts, they filed more or less silently in
and sat down in their own part of the hall.
All the classes have the names of rivers I told him.
I showed him the small pale children,
their anxious eyes, their hunger, their soft hair,
the quiet scuffles breaking out, and the little lad who came
to sit cross-legged at the feet of Ms Ahmed to escape being pinched.
God looked at his legs, his plimsolls, the top of his dark head.
God felt the danger, knew the size of the hall.
6 comments:
It's a beautiful and honest poem, like so much of your work. You have a lot to be proud of in your blogging over the years, not least in the generosity of spirit that led you to share it in the first place. I can't even imagine how awful it must've felt to have been so treated as a result of that generosity.
Yes, it's one of my favourites too. Is it a somewhat revised version? Dave put it on Smorgasblog the first time round.
I suppose the problem is that the people who might have appreciated the writing were too polite or delicate to say, or, like the woman you told me about, refrained from reading it at all rather than invade your privacy. The others were just a***holes who wouldn't appreciate it anyway and only saw it as a way to get at you. It always seemed outrageous that you were supposed to feel ashamed of it, when it only ever showed your sensitivity and commitment to the work.
Thank you for posting this again. I hope you'll re-post or publish elsewhere at least some of the other beautiful work that you posted before. It's been a pleasure and a privilege to read all of it and some of it has been an important insight for me into the kind of work you do.
We're living in a sick, shitty society that's turned a lot of individuals - including many who also have generous and caring impulses - sick and shitty.
Your skills and talents, professional, creative and the big overlap, could not be more important or needed. Just don't ever forget that, however much of the shit gets wiped off on you. I guess that's all there is, all anyone can do.
Thankyou all so much for these thoughts. It's only marginally revised Lucy - in fact looking at it closely again I can see a little more pruning to do - too many repetitions of 'children'...
Yes, Jean, I think while the phoenix is slowly rising, and not much new yet to share, I might re-post a few earlier pieces
Unless I missed something very astonishing at the end of your old blog, I'm stunned that whoever it was could have thought of it as adding up to professional misconduct. I too enjoy your lovely writing. I'm glad you're slowly rising and hope that you'll be soaring soon.
(Are you the person who warned me about saying something about a student on my blog, by the way? If so, I see why, now. I shall delete it.)
Hi Isabelle - thanks for this, and yes, that was me, feeling a bit twitchy for you after what had happened to me...
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