Tsunami - Villanelle

Tsunami - Villanelle

By Richard Lawson

Do not search hopelessly among the wreck;
not here, among the stench and sticks,
for those who left this heaviness behind.

They do not grieve, except for us
caught in the tangle of a broken paradise.
We search for what is not there in the wreck.

There is a mess of wood and broken stone
of silver bone and fertilising flesh.
They have done well to leave this weight behind.

They rise above a dark chaotic mass
moving to lightness from a hard, heart breaking work:
You will not find them here among the wreck.

For them the fear of death is in the past
from height they see the gasping shade of dark.
Their burden's gone; their being has grown light.

Look for your life among those who survive.
Wait patiently to meet the ones you seek.
Do not look now for them among the wreck -
for they have left their heaviness behind.

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"A Wood in Somerset, Iraq" won the joint third position in the Iraq Occupation Focus / Red Pepper Poetry Competition 2004

Dr Richard Lawson was born in Hayling Island, Hampshire, UK in 1946, qualified in medicine (Westminster Hospital) in 1969, and travelled overland around the world in 1971-2. After seven years of hospital psychiatry he transferred to general practice.

He is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and has been in general medical practice in Congresbury, North Somerset since 1979. He has been a UK Green Party member since about 1977, holding various national offices including Co-Speaker.

Married, with three children, he enjoys gardening, cycling, roller hockey, windsurfing, sand yachting, plays the flute, writes poems, short stories and songs, and is an ex-handglider pilot. He has a number of inventions, chiefly a double film, flexible aerofoil sail which he has been developing steadily for a number of years. He is a Quaker and a member/supporter of numerous socially conscious organizations.

More information can be found at http://www.greenhealth.org.uk/Author.htm / rlawson@gn.apc.org

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update 16 November 2008