Author: gideonheugh

Tomorrow I’m off on a 200 mile hike across Northern England, and one of the things I’m looking forward to is getting away from all the screens. True rest happens when we get rid of the distractions and tune in to ourselves – and to this beautiful world that we live in.

Rest

We’ve become
all of us
citizens of screenland,
switching on something
to try and switch off,
encouraged to escape
our thunderous minds,
numbing feeling, dumbing sense,

is that really rest?

You are far more interesting
than the world would have you believe,
and you shouldn’t be afraid
to spend time with yourself
with nothing but yourself

in the silences,

in the gaps.

What you will find is that within you
are thirsty roots
and resurrections
and a wild, shining hope.

True rest doesn’t mean tuning out,
it means tuning in
to you;

it means coming alive to your senses
and leaning over to look
at the dark pool of your feelings;

it means giving space
for the soul to sing
or sob
or whatever it needs,

it means opening up
so there’s room
for a new thing
to sink in.

 

– Gideon Heugh

Some poems mean more than others. This is one of those. I wrote this in January, not long after we found out that we’d be having a baby. The doctors had told us that, if it happened at all, it might take years. God had other plans.

Lines for my unborn child

The world will try to tell you
that you aren’t enough –
that you need
those clothes, that job, that car,
that house, that man, that woman
that whatever.

The world will try to tell you
more, you need more.

But something else –
subtle, gentle, yet infinitely powerful
will whisper
you are enough,
precisely and completely
and wonderfully enough.

Your identity was woven in the womb,
perfect before your first breath;
you have the shimmer of the miraculous
about you, the fire of something holy
within you; the wonder of life,
always the wonder and beauty of life.

You don’t need to do or have
in order to be, because you are.

– Gideon Heugh

Looking for stillness

the world wants us to buzz,
but not like the bee
who is only looking
for colour
and sweet things,

more like the droning
of a phone
Me! Me!

I’d rather be still,
forget myself,
watch the bee.

 

– Gideon Heugh

WALKING

Among the most precious things
we can say
is ‘I don’t know’ –

life is too short
too important
to be taken seriously –

release your soul
from its consumer cage
and watch it grow

until it fills the air
and colours the world
beautiful.

Learn the small things
and be satisfied:
the rainbow splash of wildflowers,

the swooning moon in crystal night,
the laughter of a chalk stream
as it falls toward some greater sea

as we all do, maybe.
One foot in front of the other repeated
will often tell you enough,

One foot in front of the other
repeated
will often tell you enough.

 

– Gideon Heugh

 

A paean to imperfection.

HUMAN

I am not technology.
I am made from mud
and stardust
and the hot breath of God.

I am not smooth or clean.
I scratch and I break
and there is dirt
under my rough fingernails.

I am not machine –
I am creature.
I dance and weep and sweat
and I love with my awkward body.

I am not perfect.
I make people cry
and I fail
and I fall again and again.

I am human.
A messy, heaving,
broken, coarse, yet
somehow glorious, human.

 

– Gideon Heugh

it happened overnight.
one day we were sat inside
shivering against winter’s grey stare
when suddenly, wonderfully,
bright fingers of life
surged up from the ground
to pull a new light down.

and all the stillness,
all the muted colour
was stirred up into a humming
sun-touched riot –
yellow and pink splashes
and green upon green.

 

– Gideon Heugh

 

A villanelle for Easter

STRONGER

We’re all searching for something true,
surrounded by fake news, extreme views, everyone’s confused
but I’ve seen that love is stronger than fear, haven’t you?

Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing we can do,
injustice is everywhere, systems are being abused –
so we keep on searching for something true.

We’re longing for hope, we’re longing for something new,
we’re longing for that bitter mountain to be moved –
but I’ve seen that love is stronger than despair, haven’t you?

The world seems to be in crisis, and perhaps our hearts are too,
but there’s a different perspective that you can choose
if you’re searching for something true:

when you peer behind a veil that’s been torn in two
you’ll see the promise of a world being renewed –
I’ve seen that love is stronger than hate, haven’t you?

Maybe that’s not enough, maybe we need another clue,
maybe there are some things that will never be proved;
yet we’re all searching for something true,
and I’ve seen that love is stronger than death, haven’t you?

– Gideon Heugh

A poem for Good Friday.

THE GREAT UNBREAKING

I remember the beginning:
the awe of newness
the sudden weight of time
and the mouth of God
spitting out violent light.

A poem for the six horses who died at Cheltenham this week.

STALLION

You of the mustang blood
and the steppe-longing;
you of the easy grace
and the rippling strength
and the mane flowing,
knowing the joy-dancing freedom
of the wild run.

You are led, blinkered,
by a small man
with a small heart
from one cage
to another
until
BANG

off running
in fear in fear
hot stripe of pain
hot stripe of pain
running
too fast
and fear
hot stripe of pain
and jump
crash
leg snap
hot stripe of pain.

They put you in another cage
until
BANG
shoot you dead.

Meanwhile the pissed rich white people
cheer on, leer on, make their money
or lose it, it doesn’t matter.
Small hearts.

In mine, for my comfort, you are somewhere else now,
mane flowing.

 

– Gideon Heugh

For International Women’s Day.

 

THIS POEM HAS A FEMINIST AGENDA

This poem has a feminist agenda,
so any man who isn’t man enough
to accept the limitless woman
you can leave,
you’re done.
The world in which you believe
has run out of breath
it’s on its last legs
and is about to be buried
by a pain that has gone on
for too long.

A pain that I will never know.

I was born into an unbalance, a privilege,
one that I confess for most of my life
I didn’t know existed.
Being a man is comfortable,
but that’s a comfort I vow not to stick with
a comfort that frankly men should be sick with.
So I’ll forever bow to the women who’ve persisted
through my own sex’s perverted, bigoted stupidity.

One day I hope to have a baby girl,
and I can’t wait for her to show the world
that she can do anything
that she can be anything
that she is worth everything.
She’ll have no reason to hide,
and I will simply step aside
and watch that woman shine.

 

– Gideon Heugh