Has my heart no rest

Detail of Fresh Air and Poverty, a quilt

Itinerant workers

Swallows in summer

Tramps walking between the wars

Mother was generous

& yet

Has my heart no rest?

Knocking on

One to another &;

Maggots add flavour

Mushrooming, breakfast found

Blackberries down the lane

O let my wish be crowned

Topping &; tailing

In a single bed, somebody's

Feet in your nose &

If one turns around

You all turn together.

No rest is to be found

Within my troubled breast.

Winter night, light up a storm

Workhouse to chapel, wave a lamp to

Warn them

In vain I look around

O Blessed love

Live off your wits &;

Beg a crust for lost souls

A cup of tea, or a curse if

They don't buy

Oh let my wish be crowned

Although I be unworthy.

Group poem

Nov 2015

From the arthur+martha project Stitching the Wars. A Two year collaboration with older people in Derbyshire, producing two embroidered quilts, a book, interviews and a series of poems. 

More poems found here. A short documentary film about the project found here.