Writing on the Wild Edges: Participant Poem from Linda Courage

At the end of August, 17 creative souls gathered with us for our retreat on Inismor – Writing on the Wild Edges of the World. We had a wonderful group with participants from all over the U.S., Canada, Singapore, and Australia. I am delighted to share some of their poems over these next few weeks. Pour a cup of tea, imagine yourself on a windswept limestone island in the Atlantic, and savor for a while.

From Linda Courage:

Back yard spaces

With buckets and overturned containers

Diggers and trailers

Useful and necessary at certain moments

But left to befriend passing creatures

And the backwater of gardens

Until they come into their own.

And so it is with us, well me at least

I have all sorts of tools that I’ve laid to rest

Some have become so overgrown and rusted

Never to be used in that form again.

Once I could drive an electron microscope

Now I know there is beauty in the unseen

Once I functioned as a well oiled machine

Now I know that seasons of life ask different things of us

Once I researched and taught

Now I know that confidence is built by walking alongside

Linda Susan Courage is a Nurse and an Expressive Artist. She is coming to the end of a rich and varied career in nursing. She has used the Arts as a means of self expression and exploration for nearly 30 years, and was delighted to discover Abbey of the Arts, which is now her primary spiritual home.

She is a member of Living Spirituality Connections, which resources and connects people asking questions that are not easily addressed in mainstream churches. Here she coordinates The Arts and Spirituality Special Interest Area.

She lives in Selby, a market town in North Yorkshire, England, with her son, Joel, and cat, Millie. She is a novice Fell walker, helps to run contemplative activities locally, and runs occasional expressive art workshops. She loves reading, and poetry.

This poem was written while on pilgrimage with Abbey of the Arts, to Inis Mor off the West coast of Ireland, with wonderful people from all over the earth, who were also Writing on the Wild Edges.