Ruth Partridge

Hidden Writing of a Ten – Year – Old

In front of my eyes
Yet shielding the sight 
Or tangible grasp 
Grasping the pen
Like holding a joystick 
Scrambled words spill onto 
A wobbly page 
Of incomplete line.

His hand hides the view
Ink stains the white
What won’t he show? 

His thoughts,though deep
Edited through speech
Deliberate for effect
Tries to impress
Complex but incomplete.

Hidden agenda 
A gamer’s world
Of stories and action
An endless stream
With no resolution
Without punctuation.

Sometimes I just can’t fathom out how to get a child’s writing to the expected standard. When they hide what they are writing it becomes a whole lot harder.

Earth Day – One Gift for All

The Earth has a pulse 
We are connected to it
This is our song

Spring Contrasts

Pocketed by the glove of fog
The day slips into a world of white
Where even the birds
Are silent
And remain unseen.

There’s a pointedness 
In the roughened fingers of wind
That wrap around the western walls 
Causing slender branches to dance
Beneath the misted pane.

The old roof nods to the wind
Passing through
Slates rattle and timbers shift
Rain courses
The ground,a sodden carpet
Of patterned hue
Is washed and faded 
And is hung out.

Yet below the saturated soil 
Threads begin to stitch
Embroidering fine roots of white 
As Spring cannot be stolen
And sap laces its way
To return the world to green.

Songs in the Night

The radiance of day slips into the Shadow of night
Tunes carry over the still air 
From the barn on the hill 
Where spangled lights
Interchange 
Through the gap in the trees
Etched black
On the fringe of the wood
Which steals the breath
Of the wind 
And carries the song
In my heart.

In the Garden- beneath our Feet

Hewn by worm casts
And labouring fork
Sifted through the gardener’s hand 
The dampness lingers under 
ancient ferns
Yet to be unfurled;
A primeval world of
Sweet fungal spores
Connected to the dawn of time
Of process and precision
And small detail;
Tiny seedlings pushing through
Lifting crumbs and flakes of bark
and stones
Inconspicuous
But with power to change;
Drawn from darkness 
To a world of light;
A gentleness
Where thoughts are stilled
And noise is ceased;
Connected to
The wonder of creation
Beneath our feet 
When we kneel to touch it.

Plum Tree Among the Skyscrapers

Simon Armitage is the new Poet Laureate and I love his poem to welcome Spring.

By Simon Armitage

Through the Window

Transient the grainy grey of 
Morning 
Slips unnoticed into view 
Shrillness carried on the ribbon of birdsong
Cuts through the grey bluish hue.

Dense the mist in blanket form
A shrouded cover to cloak the sod
A distant measure all but hidden
Etched fingers of branches held aloft.

From the Forest Floor



Drawn on whispered breath 
Of wind
The scent of pine
On upturned branches
Caressed by 
The sentiment
Of a winter sun
Channeling the 
Powder blue
Funnel of sky.

Spent leaves of Autumn
Spun into 
Drifts of
Gold carpet
Crunch
Under soft feet
Startling a wood pigeon
Breaking the spell.

When we escape the wind, mist and rain that we’ve had all day and venture North East 30 mins to find a completely different day. Pepper the Whippet hates rain -what a joy to find dry leaves!

February Mist

When fog hangs over us , as so often it does on the 300 ft contour , why are we always surprised to find a different day as we drop down into the valley?

Entrenched, enshrouded
In mist so thick 
The sun,obscured devoid of light
Darkened boughs hang low

Under the rain -filled cloud
Lanes stain red
As mud leaches
And yet to know 

The day is lightened 
As the silvered light 
Shines through in golden glow 
That paints the wayside green
In the valley down below.

A World in Glass Houses – memory

They saw him coming, they did. Crunching through snow ,up the path to the front porch, the knock deliberate and hard. It was the first time a policemen had called. He was tall and direct:his presence accentuated by his helmet,which he did not remove. A truncheon hung low from his belt. The father looked concerned.The children hid behind.

There was talk of a man on the run: there was talk of a gun. He may have passed through in the night. The garden at the back had to be checked.

The garden was a perfect white triangle of snow. No one had been out. It went to a point at the top where wooden fences met on either side . Had the policeman visited the other gardens or just this one the children wondered?

Out of the back door the policeman went – alone. A cold breath of air filled the kitchen. He stode over the grass in deliberate fashion lifting his feet high into the deep snow. Mother commented that he should have worn boots.

And there it was , right at the point where the gardens joined – one deep heavy boot print, black in the white, the crisp edges of snow folded over glistening it frost.

How that one footprint sullied and tainted. Someone had trespassed. The fugitive had, through the bleakest February night, woven his way across fences and walls of a sleeping suburbia with a gun.

They shuddered when they saw the marks . There was talk of the crime , talk of the gun. The children were kept in. The story was not.

It became a spy plan involving the woods at the park at the back. That would be where the man had gone, they thought as they stared through the glass.