September was Blood Cancer Awareness Month. Juliet Robertson has been raising awareness whilst running a fundraiser for Flynne’s Barn.
As some of you may have seen, Juliet put out a poem each day of September; she wrote the poems over the last year as a way of processing the impact of having Leukaemia. Graceful Swallows is the last poem of the anthology and is a natural fit with the vision and values at Flynne’s Barn. We are incredibly grateful to Juliet for connecting with us in this way and for raising money so that we can offer more young people the chance to come to Flynne’s Barn as part of finding their own ways of coping with the impacts of cancer. Donations can still be made during the first two weeks of October.
Thank you Juliet 💚
Graceful swallows
We don’t have to be fighters
We don’t have to battle our cancers
On poppy fields of past wars and legacies
We could love ourselves for who we are
And wonder at what life expects of us
Let’s share our fears, listening to those of others
Time does not stop in our reality
The sun still rises and travels across the sky
Allowing us to walk through shadow and light
Over fells and moors
In oak woods and becks
Time calls the graceful swallows away
Back to the shores of winter homes
Their seasonal beauty adds meaning and purpose
To our wild and precious lives
The graceful swallows with their call of freedom
Remind us that we still belong, and, we are
Irreplaceable, inimitable, loving beings
This poem came about serendipitously. It was inspired by the poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver and, a response to her famous question, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” But I loved seeing the photos of two friends and their summer alpine walk. The light and shadows struck me and I realised how much I love the interaction between weather and mountains. The nature references are about the Lake District. I noticed the swallow in the Flynne’s Barn logo and thought this needed acknowledgement.
Juliet Robertson @CreativeSTAR
01.11.2022