This is my last poem. There will be a new Manx Bard appointed soon and I wish them well.
Before I go, let me share this wonderful poem. It is wonderful. Maybe that’s because I didn’t write it. I just created it.
To be part of the Manx community is a privilege. I value it highly. To be chosen to represent the island as its national poet is an honour.
I am the 11th Manx Bard. T E Brown was not officially the Manx Bard, but unofficially, he was the first. Then there were Stacey, John, Sara, Annie, Zoe, Owen, Michael, Boakesey, Jordanne and me.
That’s only half of it though. There are also the Youth Bards: Holly, Xander, Brintha, Iva, Hadassah, Nehall, Ellie and Matilda.
I asked them if they would like to contribute to a collaborative poem, on a single theme – ‘Summertime’. I received 15 submissions. You’re never going to get everyone you know – people are busy travelling, working, studying, and just living their best lives.
Piecing this together as a single poem was not straightforward. Everyone writes differently and people have their own ideas of what a poem should be. I hope I’ve done it justice though. It was fun to do.
Let’s strive for peace. Let’s strive for goodness and decency. Let’s strive for honesty and kindness and togetherness. Let’s focus more on what unites us than what divides us. Let’s strive for summertime.
Look after yourselves.
Fifteen Views of Summertime
Sea glass isle -
breathe gentle now
It’s been a long Winter
We dig ourselves up
we’re ready to bloom
Manannan – the mist bearer
loosens the veil, only in kindness
The dawning light spills over
the cliffs at Langness
When old poets strive for rhyme
Hearts and hills will always rise
Clouds traversing summer skies
They stop me in my tracks
A thrill of battling blue and orange
Colours like a rainbow
In the hills, we find our native gorse
Sharp-tongued, flamboyant
A seagull cries
A bumble-bee flies
The sea hijacks each distant view,
hums a half-remembered song
A cold-blooded human
I pace the path, and long
for the warm, sticky embrace
of sweltering days
There’s power in anticipation
Blossoms erupt – in profusion
An overnight metamorphosis
My heart is with the roses
There’s power in the approach
of the Manx Summer.
lighter nights, ambitious t-shirts,
jackets left optimistically at home
so warm,
so delightful,
so wet,
so cold.
In the terrible wonderful length of day
the beauty of the thing, when children play
A community of bathers, fishers, rowers
Reclining in the rare summer heat
the peaceful waves rolling up,
under the setting of the sun.
Manannan’s magic wand
commands the Sun retreat
your ice-cream melts away
The soul, once awakened, cannot return blind,
truth leaves a permanent mark on the mind
I would not wish to be part
of this departing light
withdrawing through the trees it made
Summer is cruel, the way it must fade
Summer departs, late September day
the vibrant twilight over Douglas Bay