He is Home

 “When the ground around feels fragile

And your feet falter

Go slow then and know 

That Heaven’s rest is now his home

Where chaos meets perfect order 

and souls are made new.”

A French Revolution of My Own

In my heart’s home I am healed

By the land and Your hand as I stand 

Here.

I am a girl and grown all at once in this place

Trapped in the spaces of the past

And at once flung forward into a 

Free future not yet known.

Perhaps my day of glory has now arrived

Built on the years gone before

Wrought in my very own war

This is my liberty. Beloved liberty.

The value of a refugee

A serpent refugee

A person in need

Do you hate my skin

Blonde gets you in

In a wood in a tent

Welcome home have a bed

My wounds are unseen

Hotel showers make you clean

A lorry again tonight

Private jet, direct flight 

Does anyone there see us

Here have your visas 

Easier perhaps to be dead 

than 

to

inconvenience 

anyone 

by

p r o c e s s i n g

me.

I think that non-discriminate abundant care and extravagant generosity should be given to anyone who flees their home because of war, persecution or danger.

I don’t think our government have gone anywhere near far enough to accommodate and support the people of Ukraine and the other countries in Europe in assisting them.

It is clear that there is a massive need and it is right and just that those who have much and who are safe should want to afford that to those that don’t (through no fault of their own).

I cannot get the refugees stuck in Calais and Dunkirk out of my mind though. I keep imagining how it must feel to be so desperate to be humanised whilst being treated like dogs and rats, driven out of make-shift shelters again and again by the French police and ignored by the British government. What do they think when they see Ukrainian refugees (rightly) being given access to hotels and spare rooms in people’s homes? I can’t fathom the suffering of those who have already escaped war, travelled so far, risked everything only to find that somehow their exodus is less valid, that their torment is less traumatising.

I wrote a poem a couple of years ago from the ignorant and demeaning perspective unfortunately held by some people in Britain; those who view refugees as snakes to be stood upon. It’s in the old archives here if you’re bored and want something to read.

International Women’s Day 2022

Animal/Human

Property/Home

Pay gap/Close the gap/Close your legs

Bleed.

Broken/Dreaming

Child bride/Grown

Rich girl/Poor girl/Dead girl

Bleed.

Silenced/Singing

Gutter/Throne

Who cares/Who’s there/Who sees

Bleed.

Lost/Chosen

In the dark/Known

His life/New life/Whole life

Freed.

You can’t say “Happy International Women’s  Day” until you acknowledge that it isn’t happy to have to protect yourself from the police. 

The idea of women’s inferiority has been propagated for far too long and feminism isn’t a cry of superiority but a call to be considered as a soul not an object. This day is a challenge for me and all of us to ensure that the future looks different to the present and the past. Grateful for Jesus who saw women exactly as they were and honoured them entirely.