by Maya Angelou b. 1928 St Louis A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars ofContinue reading “Caged Bird”
Author Archives: Robin
Sons and brothers battle it out in the Anglo-Saxon Game of Thrones
Over 450 years after the Romans left Britons to fend for themselves the people they left behind had gone West (no, I don’t mean they were all dead, they had literally gone into the West) and the Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Danes and other assorted “visitors” had taken over most of the area that is nowContinue reading “Sons and brothers battle it out in the Anglo-Saxon Game of Thrones”
Time Runs Backward After Death
by Robert Bly b. 1926 Minnesota Samson, grinding bread for widows and orphans, Forgets he is wronged, and the answers The Philistines wrangled out of him go back Into the lion. The bitter and the sweet marry. He himself wronged the lion. Now the wheat Caresses the wind with its wifely tail; the donkey RunsContinue reading “Time Runs Backward After Death”
A little cloud swims to the sun
by Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian poet A little cloud swims to the sun, With all her crimson borders trailing, And beckons to the sun to sleep And covers it with rosy veiling, Cradled in the dark blue sea, As a mother lulls her child … Lovely to the eyes … And now It seems the heartContinue reading “A little cloud swims to the sun”
Song of Furies
Aeschylus c525BC-c456BC Up and lead the dance of Fate! Lift the song that mortals hate! Tell what rights are ours on earth, Over all of human birth. Swift of foot to avenge are we! He whose hands are clean and pure, Naught our wrath to dread hath he; Calm his cloudless days endure. But theContinue reading “Song of Furies”
Lazy Sunday afternoon as I head off South to begin a brand new life
A Sunday drive in late summer from North Wales to Dorset, in a 1950s green Morris Minor, is one of the most relaxing journeys I can think of. Well I found it relaxing on that sunny day in 1974. It was just as well that I have always found driving myself from A to BContinue reading “Lazy Sunday afternoon as I head off South to begin a brand new life”
As if in a dream I hear the radio playing Ukranian patriotic songs
Michael Rosen born 1946 As if in a dream I hear the radio playing Ukranian patriotic songs and lovingly produced discussions about the history of Ukraine and admiration pouring out of my radio and TV for the brave people of Ukraine daring to stand up to this terrible invasion and I felt warm and sadContinue reading “As if in a dream I hear the radio playing Ukranian patriotic songs”
Television
by Roald Dahl 1916-1990 The most important thing we’ve learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set – Or better still, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we’ve been, We’ve watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slopContinue reading “Television”
Farewell to a comfortable office life and it’s hey ho for the open road
Having made my decision to move on it was not just a simple case of finish work as a journalist at 5pm on a Friday and start working as a roadie for a puppet show at 9am on the following Monday morning. Giving up the flat would be a bit of wrench. It was theContinue reading “Farewell to a comfortable office life and it’s hey ho for the open road”
The Sun
by Mary Oliver born 1935, Cleveland, Ohio Have you ever seen anything in your life more wonderful than the way the sun, every evening, relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon and into the clouds or the holls, or the rumpled sea, and is gone – and how it slides again out of the blackness,Continue reading “The Sun”
Robin's Nest 