Three Poems by Stephen Wrigley

Gull

A bird stands in the field, a gull.

He comes most days, to the same spot, 

central, white on green. I wonder

why he visits. Peace? Surely not,

gulls are gregarious. Perhaps 

he’s staking out a nesting site,

but on a field, in view, exposed, 

vulnerable from any height?

There must be something else. Cast out 

from the colony, penance calls.

He’s lost a mate and comes to mourn. 

Wanderlust - is this where it stalls?

I wish him well, even envy

his space, above, that arch of sky,

and when he’s done with thought and rest, 

his languid skill to lift off. Fly.

Gull Again

Gull has returned, same field, same spot, 

may have a mate, each white on green. 

Head raised, a cautious circling starts

as beak to breast he bobs and preens.

Potential nest? It’s too exposed 

although an all round view exists. 

I'm unconvinced: marauding fox 

or Mr Brock would not desist.

So, courtship wins? A handy patch

to strut and bow, advance his case? 

One could do worse than step the dance 

upon this grassy private space.

I pause to write. But, raise my eyes, 

the birds have flown, the field is clear. 

Like snow, their visit was a gift,

fresh at December’s end of year.

Buzzard, Gull

Buzzard comes visiting the field, 

imposing presence, squat and dark. 

Feathered, his flanks top armoured feet, 

the trappings of an oligarch.

Northward lies his wooded stronghold: 

is he beating boundary lines?

With such a high ungainly step,

that may not be the task in mind.

But wait! From nowhere, Gull appears,

a raucous diving mobster bird.

He harries Buzzard from his patch 

despite a foe hook-beaked and spurred.

Chance passing flight? The world of air 

has hidden corridors, it seems.

There, raptors ride but lookouts guard 

the limits of perceived regimes.

Stephen Wrigley 

“Gulls” and “Gulls Again” appeared in the magazine “Stanzas” in 2020

Letters from Lockdown: Maintaining Integrity in the Public Sector During the Pandemic Dr. Claire Foster-Gilbert 22 April 2022 meeting

 The Literary  Soc. once again welcomed Claire Foster-Gilbert whose last talk to us on Julian of Norwich was warmly received and was in some ways to provide a resonant echo for this latest assignment – an exploration of the role of institutional support in the maintenance and enhancement of integrity in public life against the backdrop of the pandemic.  The medieval anchoress, Julian, contrived to cast a long shadow from her 14^th century cell to the contemporary British world of Coronavirus lockdowns where a whole nation could chorus Macbeth’s lament But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in.  While Julian experienced and reported expansive visions of worlds beyond the narrow confines of her cell, the Britain of 2020 confronted claustrophobia, constricted horizons and a compulsion to conjure up moral and spiritual resilience. 

Previously, Claire had drawn on her work with the St. Paul Institute and her task of shoehorning ethics into the public space but her most recent endeavours had been under the auspices of the Westminster Abbey Institute in the beating heart of the British state in Parliament Square.  Her former target had been the business community but now she pursued public servants – senior civil servants and Members of Parliament – making Peter Hennessy’s soundbite her objective to summon the better angels of their natures.  Moral dilemmas are clearly inextricably linked to policy drivers but trying to nurture integrity and build trust in public life posed a significant challenge. 

There were differences between the civil servants and the parliamentarians.  The former are products of a meritocracy, custodians of propriety and loquacious.  95% were Remainers but had been charged with implementing Brexit.  Politicians proved a more elusive quarry; extremely reluctant to discuss ethics, sentenced to the treadmill of selection, election and re-election, constitutionally incapable of admitting a need for help.  It took more than 8 years before MPs started to unburden themselves to Claire.  Scandals threatened to derail the Institute’s impartial, evangelical outreach project of advancing moral integrity among this notoriously tribal group – the 3-line whip in the Owen Paterson cronyism case, Partygate(s) times n and Lord Sewell’s Shock! Horror! Prostitutes and cocaine video.

Claire’s therapeutic armamentarium consisted of the Institute’s impartial approach, encouraging reflection and examination of conscience, and meditation inspired by the retreat of the wounded, previously military glory-hunting Ignatius Loyola to transformative meditation in his mountain cave near Manresa in Catalonia.  Our speaker had found contemplative retreats helpful and had encountered the disgraced Lord Sewell finding his way again at one. Starting a Council of Reference had made the Institute more effective and the Fellows had been particularly good at helping erstwhile colleagues approach their areas of vulnerability in a positive, creative way with the ex-parliamentarian, Dominic Grieve, earning particularly high marks. 

Lockdown and social distancing made the Institute’s mission almost impossibly difficult but the resourceful Claire circumvented these barriers with her series of epistles, Letters from Lockdown.  In addition to aiding others in addressing and overcoming psychological vulnerabilities Claire had to meet the physical challenge of being diagnosed with myeloma and undergoing stem cell transplantation, gut decontamination and 18 months of chemotherapy – all emphatically placing her in the Government’s vulnerable category. So not for our speaker the transformative, monomythic hero’s journey of Ignatius Loyola but rather a reciprocal compression and confinement of mind and body from which she emerges as the resolute, moral leader of a resolute moral institution.  

William Doherty