Poetry in the People’s Park

Don’t Look Back in Anger

Don’t look back in anger
Is a common phrase
A throwaway nugget of advice
Forget what’s gone before
The petty meanness, the measured spite

Don’t look back in anger
Don’t ruminate
Don’t bear a grudge
Don’t hate

Because when you do
You stoke the heat
You feed the memory
You walk that street
Of agonising defeat.

How could they
Do this to me!
I am good
They are bad
They are guilty
I am sad.

But am I good?
Of course I’m not.
In other’s eyes
I’ve caused the pain.

And I ask them now
Forgive my hurtful remark
My thoughtless slight
Don’t look back in anger
Forgive that oversight
Of a long time ago.
It’s time to let it go.
1980. Jean McDonald

I wrote this poem a long time ago to teach myself to let go of perceived wrongs done by another to me. I tried to tell my young self that maybe I had said things carelessly to others and had caused them pain without meaning to. To let things just go.

The sun shone. The wind howled but miraculously no rain. And once again the People’s Park looked beautiful.

For my second poem I read Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’. Well after all he was born on April 7th so it seemed fitting.

Paul read a poem about building a new home on the site of a derelict cottage of your ancestors ( you often see this down the country in Ireland); Siobhan read a poem about the loss of a loved pet dog; Justine from Poland read a poem about a trip to India. And many more.

A lady came to arrange our next get together first Sunday in May where we are having readings of poems of Palestine. The Moving Skirts Group of Bray will also come to celebrate Bealtaine and showcase the Dabkeh dance. They will demonstrate and then invite the poetry circle to learn and participate. I am already looking forward to it.

https://youtu.be/VBQx3BXZ_74?feature=shared

I am glad to be part of this group.

Happy blowy Sunday