St Peter’s-on-The Wall,
Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex (2024)
For those who have, like Pam, my wife, and me, visited the Chapel built in the 7th century by Cedd and his followers, many times over the years, the comparatively recent installation of wind turbines is bound to affect our perceptions of the site, gladdening many and bothering others.
I am firmly in the former of these two groups, so was glad to be able to spend a week in the nearby Othona Community* and feel again a sense of spiritual well-being this time, both in the chapel and arising from the sight of the clean energy producers.
Given this weaving of emotions, I was particularly pleased, when looking out to sea, with my back to the chapel wall (so standing on the left of the chapel in this picture), I was able to fashion words that both celebrated a return to a place special to Pam and me and generated ideas to draw together in a new poem inspired by a change after centuries : 'With My Back to The Chapel Wall’
With my back to the chapel wall
I know, from Cedd’s faithful orientation
I am facing East.
And in a bracing onshore wind,
I look out to sea.
Within moments I am assailed
by a breath-sapping gust
and simultaneously seized by the vista.
A makeover after millennia
of changelessness.
Tall white tapering candles of steel
surmounted by swirling blades
eagerly drawing energy
from the same - but amplified wind.
These are our hope.
But grief stricken, I see
that even now
they are threatened by
the menacing blackness
of earlier constructed rigs.
In the foreground,
grasses sway and dragonflies dart,
while they still can.
* The Othona Community, with its site adjacent to the Chapel, is a Christian Community of reconciliation which welcomes people of all faiths or none to join in the fellowship of that community. You can read more at The Othona Community, Essex
