A Good Life

Blue Sky

A Good Life
I am now older
Than the breeze
Coming in from
The Sea of Galilee
My legs root me here
To the ground beneath
The reed roofed, porch.
My grandchildren
Hide in my beard like
Little birds
Then move through the
Grove of fig and date
I planted, once I was able to.
The little ones scribble
Their names in the sand,
Afresh each morning,
After the goats have trampled
Yesterday’s names under foot.

I think of him often as I sit
No longer at home in my town,
the town that wouldn’t help.
He died some time ago,
I was there
A thousand people
Stood in the Samarian mid-day sun
to say farewell.

Behttps://heartoffleshlit.com/issue-four/bernard-pearson/rnard Pearson

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Bernard Pearson

poet & author

Bernard lives in Oswestry, UK. He is published in around one hundred journals and magazines worldwide. He is also a spoken-word performer, finalist in both the John Tripp Spoken Word Competition and The All Wales Comic Verse Competition. Plus a biographer and prize-winning short story writer. His work has appeared in many publications. In 2017 a selection of his poetry ‘In Free Fall’ was published by Leaf by Leaf  Press. In 2019 he won second prize in The Aurora Prize (an international competition in Poetry) for his poem ‘Manor Farm’ and his first novel ‘Where the Willows End‘ was published by Leaf by Leaf Press. His second novel is due out in 2022.

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