#helpston

I found this quite hard to write - acknowledging sentiment without being sentimental..... Reflecting on an annual event (it's now a tradition) in St Botolph's churchyard, Helpston (John Clare's home village), involving about 100 children from the John Clare Primary School.

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'Midsummer Cushions'

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‘Poets Are Born Not Made’ - John Clare’s own words inscribed on his grave (pictured).

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A sun-shining day in the churchyard

Young and old gather there

Turfs of grass and flowers are laid

At the grave of the poet John Clare

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A villagers’ custom this man knew well

The summer-time fields in the home

‘Midsummer cushions’ of flowers, he wrote

The poet would love to have known …

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Love to have known that the children would come

To celebrate his birth

With mid-summer cushions of flowers on show

In a bed of fresh green turf

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And as I watch each child approach

My heart begins to lift

Thoughts of their crafting at home and at school

This beautiful natural gift

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Of course it would not be straightforward

Nothing worth something is so

No doubt some colourful verbal exchanges -

This, however, I know

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These grave-side moments will live in their memory

Their moments will live on in ours

These moments of planning and making and placing

Their midsummer cushions of flowers

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Their gift for the man who cried ‘I Am ...’

For the man who died in despair

For the man who lies in this grave near his home

The natural poet John Clare

John Clare country.