So here is a very nice idea.

A blog called Poetry Thursday encourages people to post a poem on their own blog – every Thursday – and link back, creating a little Thursday community of writers and poems.

Although I feel a little shy about posting one of my poems here, I'm going to join in the fun – because Poetry Thursday seems an important thing.

As some of you will know already, I am passionate about the idea that writing and reading and expressing and making (poems, stories, little pieces of narrative, images) can help people in all sorts of ways – but especially by helping them to create a small breathing space in an increasingly fast and noisy world. Writing, in this sense, can be self-hypnosis…

And this breathing space is so important because panic and anxiety unfortunately seem to be on the rise. Or perhaps it is simply that we are beginning to recognise anxiety more than we used to do?

I've been following the thoughts of a nice man called Eric, over at the PANIC! blog, as he tries to understand more about his own anxiety and that of others and collects together descriptions of people's experiences. I think it's great that Eric is doing this. It helps us to understand more about this area and it is also helpful in that people suffering from panic and anxiety can often feel very isolated and alone.

So, here is one of my own little poem 'out breaths'… in honour of Poetry Thursday.

Song

Early. Everything hums:
the rain hanging
in fat minims from the washing-line,

the leaves caught
in the spaces
between branches and shadow

and, in the house behind me,
I imagine I can almost catch
the trembling of bedsprings;

this soft ventriloquy
of dreaming as everyone sleeps,
as I say a word, over and over,
out loud, announcing it in the music of things.