14th of May 2020

Today's poem has been chosen by Mindfulness Chaplain, Dr Kitty Wheater.

'I Want The Faith', by Linnet Drury
 

Linnet Drury is a pupil at Oxford Spires Academy. 

OSA is a state secondary school in Oxford, where pupils speak thirty different languages. For several years, the Scottish poet Kate Clanchy has been writer in residence at OSA, teaching children to write poetry. She regularly features their beautiful work on her Twitter feed, and her book, Some Kids I Taught And What They Taught Me, has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2020.

 
Linnet wrote 'I Want The Faith' when she was 15. She is now 17. You can hear her poem read by the actor Samuel West, here. 
 

I  want the faith

Image of a watercolour painting of a beach, in the foreground you can see a black dog running along the beach. In the middle of the painting there is the white waves as the water meets the sand, and in the distance there are white boats sailing on the water.
 
of the glass cup that merely bounced
when I dropped it on the parquet floor, 
of the clear liquid that barely spilled
 
of the weeds that survived the summer 
of the bulbs of our school physics practical
that still flicker months later 
 
of the streetlamps that turn on by themselves 
at dusk; of the lady who paints the beach
in the rain, her acrylic turning to watercolour
 
of those tins of emulsion that don't bother 
with a sample, that describes their colour
with words. Mine fail me. 
 
 

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