Richard Westcott's poetry

Christmas – or if you prefer, Solstice, Hanukkah, or just This Special Time… Stop now.  For a moment, wait. And look.  From here you can see far. In this direction, where we’ve been – the climb, the ups and downs. Now turn around. There before you lies the future.  At the summit of the year there’s time to rest, and be refreshed – let’s gather here, so we may share each other’s company, look forward to the new arrivals, lives to come travelling into this misty landscape, and in our brightness bring to mind those no longer in our group. So drop your rucksack, get your breath back the old year lies behind – for now let’s all enjoy the present gift-wrapped here before us. I’m quite sure this little poem has no great literary, let alone poetic merit, but hey we don’t always have to be polished, clever, neat or profound. Or original. Or elegant. Especially not when you’ve just got to the top of a mountain. But there is a def

Water Music I just had to post this poem while we’re still in 2017. Handel’s Water Music was premiered on the odd, if not magical date of 17/7/1717. It wouldn’t be the same somehow in the boringly even year 2018... We played hard that evening, us fifty from Whitehall to Chelsea, then all the way home. Till four in the morning we walked on the water gently in duples, jigged hornpipes in three, from Overture to Air we strolled and we danced staccato, legato, allegro, con brio our melodies flowed down the river, lost as we played them.  But he liked what he heard. Three times he wanted it, over and over, ‘I shall have it again’, and he had it river reflected, broken by waves those symphonies, rippled like flags fluttering a moment. So we too were kings for a while, gorgeous and golden along with the real one, old George. And the younger as well, he was well pleased to breathe in his music, inspired by this water, refreshed and tra