We All Bleed Red

Vince Laws, a friend, poet, artist and mental health and disability rights campaigner has a fabulous new exhibition at the Oulton village church in Norfolk which launched today and is on until 30th.  It's entitled 'We All Bleed Red' and is absolutely stunning.

The village is tiny, picture-postcard pretty and the church is an integral part of it being used for things like yoga classes and other community activities when not being used for worship.  It's a tiny church (I think 13th century) with a regular core congregation of between 13 and 20 people.

The weather was glorious, the cakes were delicious and it was a perfect start to my week off work.

Below is a new poem from Vince, which I absolutely love, and at 'extras' you can see Vince performing this poem and Badger (the dog in the poem) and here you can see more pics of the exhibition.

The Dog & I…
The dog and I leave the door unlocked
and walk out where plums litter the pastry lane,
where tractors edge the verges into an endless homemade pie.
The dog looks up as thunder boils like custard in a pot.
“Onward beast!” I cry, “If David Hockney can stand outside
and paint at seventy, so can I!”
The dog wants to turn right,
up the track where daydream rabbits lie,
instead we head straight over,
and sight a constellation of pink campions
flung across a universe of green.
Breathe that in.
The scent of treetops,
descends as raindrops,
hits my brain stops,
trickles down my throat,
dot, dot, dot…
This is what I wanted you to see,
a picture-postcard cottage
with a postbox in the wall.
Come on in, the door’s unlocked,
this is where I live,
this is where I call home.
There’s a plum pie in the oven,
and instant custard won’t take long.
Come on in.

I thought of Ceridwen and Casey when I heard it.