Beth Brooke
LightNews LightNews
banner
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Beth Brooke
@bethbpoet.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1K following 1.5K posts
Poet, Quaker, retired teacher, socialist, runner (just) , proud Omi . She/her
Posts Replies Media Videos
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Today is the anniversary of my dear friend Peter’s death. He was our son Peter’s godfather. I wrote this poem on his two year anniversary.
A Poem for Peter, two years dead For a moment, I thought it was you - or else one of those effigies of venerable Plantagenets come to life. Long slender fingers smoothed down your beard ( his beard ) and your eyes- (his eyes ) blue as the Madonna’s robe returned, enquiringly, my stare.
November 17, 2025 at 12:27 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
A first draft
The Northern Lights Fill The Skies Over Alberta And My Son Tries To Share The Moment With Me The Aurora Borealis is having a moment my media feed is full of excited posts from people who proclaim that they have been blessed privileged honoured to observe those twists of green and purple light spread across the night sky I send you a text asking if you have seen this spectacle Not yet you say but you hoped they would be there again at bedtime And I think how the night that you anticipate is already here for me When I wake up to your photographs of Northern Lights shot from the decking in your garden I realise that I am looking at a sky that for me happened yesterday happened four thousand miles ago
November 14, 2025 at 9:23 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Remembering my father and all his comrades today. ❤️
My father circa 1941 in his army uniform
November 11, 2025 at 4:02 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
I went out with a good friend who told me something that made me sad. Some people who had been at the launch of A Long Way Down told her what a horrible man my dad must have been . I thought I had written something full of love and empathy. Tell me I am right 🙏
Everything Afterwards Was Just An Anticlimax There are too many unasked questions for him to answer now; the years after were an anticlimax nothing ever as alive after the guns fell silent and the smoke cleared. What could ever be as vivid as that hour when, before the dawn betrayed them, they made their way like ghosts to the river, committed themselves to the water, clung to the sides of the boat while others oared their way across to the other side, stroke by silent stroke.
November 10, 2025 at 5:11 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
A little poem to celebrate my grandson’s nursery outing to collect leaves
Nursery Outing They found autumn in the park, glowing pieces spread across the grass, bright with shades of colours they could not yet begin to name, but they gathered handfuls, knew each leaf was treasure.
November 9, 2025 at 2:00 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Tree on the way to Charminster to visit my parents grave .
Beech tree displaying pale green, rust-coloured and yellow leaves. Bright against a cloudy sky
November 9, 2025 at 11:44 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Spent the afternoon prepping for a highlights tour. Dorset Museum is just wonderful. Here’s the mosaic found in Fordington near where I live. It fills the atrium wall
The mosaic hangs on the atrium wall. The god Neptune can be seen at the top
October 31, 2025 at 6:19 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Let’s have a poem
The Draw of Winter An October morning, the mist above the river drifts into invisibility and the fields begin to smell of sunrise, damp, straw-scented, redolent of summer’s end. I am heavy with the effort of harvest, long to burrow myself away underground, wrap myself in dark nights and starless skies hide myself from the disturbance of the moon which tugs at me, gently but insistent that I must come out one winter evening and admire its pale-faced reflection in the still water.
October 16, 2025 at 9:04 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Thank you @longbarrowpress.bsky.social this book is beautiful.
Book cover of Truth, Justice and the Companionship of Owls by Peter Riley
October 14, 2025 at 6:06 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
This hog has come to stay in my spare hog house.
Close up of a hedgehog. Its snout and eyes are fully visible
October 5, 2025 at 5:32 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Nice 6:5kms around Hardys Monument. Not as epic as our German walks but a pretty autumn amble
Grassy fields in the foreground rise to a bracken covered hill. Hardys Monument is on the skyline
October 5, 2025 at 1:56 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Draft of a holiday inspired poem
A Walk In The Landscape Of The Brothers Grimm This is the forest dark trees dark stories grow together roots thread underfoot toadstools grow red as a girl’s cape Twisting paths tangled narratives of pine beech unexpected meadows rowan trees heavy with berries Stones that trip fell the walker surely as a woodsman’s axe and between the arms of trees light through a cottage window flickering hope of fairy tale endings
October 5, 2025 at 8:36 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
I’m thinking this poem suits the fabulous Black Forest - all Grimms fairytales and that. Today is our last day but we have had a wonderful time
Confession Don’t think I didn’t know what I was doing when I left the path, there is only so much never straying to left or right a person can bear. I knew about the flowers too, all the secret places; it wasn’t my first time. I let the moon take me, walked under the pines, through the needled forest floor until I reached the place where it waited. Its greyness was rich, warm as smoke. I knelt, grabbed handfuls of thick pelt, held it to my face, inhaled the scent of it - frosted nights, the iron tang of blood- wanted the strength, the heat of it. I loosened my cape, undid the hood, left them for the woodman to assume the worst. I dressed myself a wolf skin embrace; it wasn’t the first time.
October 1, 2025 at 5:48 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Today’s walk was 15kms.
Mostly pine woodland with some deciduous trees lining the edge of the lake. The trees are reflected in the water
September 28, 2025 at 2:11 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
22.5kms achieved. Phew.
Black Forest valley showing a green meadow and trees in the background
September 27, 2025 at 2:54 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Went to see this last night. Powerful performances and James Graham writing his best. Catch it if you can. Punch will have you reeling
Outside the Apollo theatre London showing the play Punch
September 26, 2025 at 5:06 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Incy wincy spider. #autumn
Spider web with a garden spider at the centre
September 22, 2025 at 8:21 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
£550 raised for MAP. Thank you for supporting me to do this by buying my book
Receipt to MAP for £550
September 18, 2025 at 11:44 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
#WednesdayWIP @thebrokenspine.co.uk Here it is:
The Worms Will Come On grey feet, webbed, beautiful as a ginkgo leaf, the fledgling gull tries out its worm dance on my kitchen roof. Pirate eyes like black pearls, it taps a rhythm on the mossy tiles hopeful, hopeful that, against all odds, the worms will come.
September 17, 2025 at 8:32 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
So the UN agrees it’s genocide. Time to give this another airing. We are all complicit I fear.
Nakba We are already deep into that night where the unspeakable creeps out; we sense the tapping of its spindle fingers as it feels it way along the walls, crawls to meet the rhythm of our hurrying feet; we are anxious to reach the safety of home where the lamps are lit and there are, we think, no shadows to disquiet us. We walk, try to keep ourselves from running, but the monsters of our unfinished business wait just ahead. Wraithlike, they slip in behind us as we open the front door, sit in our favourite chairs; their rictus smiles greet us when we enter the sanctuary of our living room and turn on the light.
September 16, 2025 at 8:18 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
There’s been a bit of love for this poem over on substack so I reckon I should let you have it too. Nobody wanted to publish it so sharing is good
Loki’s Candles Loki’s Candles is the name given in Shetland to the small curls of birch bark carried across the Atlantic from the forests of the United States and Canada. They burn fierce and long once dried and give off a dense sweet smoke. First the river took us we tumbled in silver shavings from the bark of slender trees pioneers in the vocation of landscape We corkscrew curled swelled with water travelled until the river offered us up to the maw of the sea We travelled the whale road drawn like the compass needle to north and to a different shore a landscape without the deep roots of white -trunked trees the comfort of forests There the god Loki called them told them look look at this bounty gather it to warm your hearths cook your meat We had been salted by the journey left to dry and then they gathered us Caught the god Loki as he swam in the river a wild salmon his flesh made rich smoke sweet by our burning
September 15, 2025 at 1:46 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Water meadows looking autumnal and beautiful. A pair of ravens and lots of little egrets. In other news, a hedgehog has come home to the hog house! 🦔
Moody clouds promise rain. The stream runs through the shot banked by oak and willow
September 14, 2025 at 10:40 AM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Self-improvement Obviously, I should go on a diet: losing the three kilos that bulge between me at sixty-seven and my pre-menopausal, pre-babies twenty-something self will make all the difference. I should give more of myself to charity, good works: helping others as sure-fire a way as any to reduce my self-obsession. And I should count my blessings; read more, doom-scroll less; stop wasting my time watching crap TV. I should try harder. I will try harder. I should stop voicing opinions, who is interested anyway? I should smarten myself up, that goes without saying; I should drink a glass of a decent burgundy wine with my evening meal because it’s good for my cholesterol, my blood pressure, my dementia, my stress; I should stop trying to be a hero mother and cultivate sluttishness for a change. I should try harder, I will try harder. And I know I should try to give a fuck - but I just don’t have one.
September 13, 2025 at 2:19 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
If you look carefully you can see the spiderweb 🕸️ and the spider 🕷️ at the centre. We caught the train to Maiden Newton this morning and then walked back home. 15kms and practice for our German trip.
Dappled light on the woodland floor. There’s a spider web hanging from a branch. The spider is at the centre of the web
September 5, 2025 at 1:06 PM
bethbpoet.bsky.social
Now available from Dempsey & Windle www.dempseyandwindle.com/bethbrooke.h...
The cover of my new book. The black and white photo shows my father learning to parachute jump during World War 2
September 1, 2025 at 5:58 AM