Flowers and the Pump

I saw it—

on the road from Reeth to

Arkengarthdale:

an old petrol pump,

abandoned by time,

leaning like a tired priest

who’d forgotten his prayers.

And beside it—

a wheelbarrow of flowers:

red,

pink,

defiant—

preaching

without words.

And it came to me—

a parable:

Once,

we knelt

to the gods of carbon and smoke,

sought their blessing

in speed and flame.

But all that glitters

was not gold.

We tasted the curse—

but kept on drinking the

Kool Aid.

The machine is breaking.

The myth is cracking.

The age is ending.

But the flowers—

they do not fear.

They bloom anyway.

A beauty to enchant the world,

to call it back

to the garden,

to the temple

it was always meant to be.

The pump rusts.

The earth waits.

And the flowers?

They keep telling the truth.

Rev’d Jon Swalesledale Parable

I saw it—

on the road from Reeth to

Arkengarthdale:

an old petrol pump,

abandoned by time,

leaning like a tired priest

who’d forgotten his prayers.

And beside it—

a wheelbarrow of flowers:

red,

pink,

defiant—

preaching

without words.

And it came to me—

a parable:

Once,

we knelt

to the gods of carbon and smoke,

sought their blessing

in speed and flame.

But all that glitters

was not gold.

We tasted the curse—

but kept on drinking the

Kool Aid.

The machine is breaking.

The myth is cracking.

The age is ending.

But the flowers—

they do not fear.

They bloom anyway.

A beauty to enchant the world,

to call it back

to the garden,

to the temple

it was always meant to be.

The pump rusts.

The earth waits.

And the flowers?

They keep telling the truth.

Rev’d Jon Swales