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St Mary's
Poet: Philip Rush
It is a thing
of quiet
the Ampney Brook
as it flows
past the church
of St Mary
on the one hand
water plants
willows
and various shades of green
some more translucent than others
and
on the other
stone work sacred
silences
and the rough painted nave
of a medieval church
which hunkers
down in its meadow
like a
wicket keeper
and indeed there is
a small gate
between the churchyard
and the footpath
to the brook
which is a thing
of quiet.
Philip Rush lives in Stroud. His poems have been in several British and Irish magazines and in anthologies from Carcanet, Bloodaxe and Seren. Philip thinks that poems help us to see the world in new ways and that the best poems help us to see ‘into the life of things’. The means at any poem’s disposal to achieve this end are almost infinitely broad.