Cold Front
Stephen Kingsnorth
Inaccurate assessment, but catch feels like twenty two.
I am retired, no longer role of leadership required.
I have poor health, must accept limitation of my strength.
I have ideas, but not the means to action them myself.
The only left for me to do pass wisdom of my years.
But dare not bear inevitable stress that radical implies.
And so I muse what might have been, and indeed what was not.
I end with inner turmoil that the dreams unmatch the real.
The book not read, not written; the church too good to be true;
I fear if I get too involved, the spirit will be wisp.
I versify which helps so much, like father, so like son.
But cold fronts buffet frequently, the long term forecast bleak.
Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Parliament Literary Journal. His blog is at