Tag: Mr G

A Surprise of Creation

photos:Gill Henwood

Scarlet elf cup (Sarcoscypha austriaca)

These photos come from my friend, Gill Henwood.

Gill was  tidying up her garden ready for Spring recently. –
“We found this in our damp dell whilst cutting back ferns to give emerging snowdrops more light.
This is a Scarlet Elf Cup (Fungus), A beautiful deep scarlet, hidden within the soft blush cup.
Vibrant colour, in a woodland floor of decaying twigs and leaves, and mosses. 
Creation surprises us with unexpected delights. Rich red on a gloomy, cloudy, drizzling day.”

For more information, visit the Woodland Trust website, which describes the Elf Cup as ‘Mystical and cheery.’ Mystical and cheery, the scarlet elf cup grows on decaying sticks and branches in damp spots and beneath leaf litter on the woodland floor. Their bright pops of colour brighten up even the darkest winter day.

Elsewhere we read that, ‘The Scarlet Elf Cup’ gets its name from folklore that says woodland elves use the vibrant, cup-shaped fungi as tiny goblets to drink morning dew or that fairies bathe in the rainwater collected in them. Its bright red colour against the winter woodland floor, combined with its delicate, cup-like shape, inspired these imaginative tales of mythical beings.

Elf-cups (a poem by Mr G)

Hidden beneath decaying leaves
forest debris moves.
Soil crumbles beneath finger and thumb
of creation’s constant action.
Earth changing shape as pale wintry light
penetrates the woodland womb
bringing to birth cup-like, colourful fungi
signs that winter prepares to herald Spring.
God’s creation always surprises us,
if we but look with open hearts
ever expectant to be captivated.

Yet look again – these chalices of winter dew
may carry Nature’s sacrament of new life
to waiting elves!

Mr G. 24th January 2026

Oblivion in Gaza

Oblivion in Gaza

You hold your dead child,
remembering the tender holding of your new-born.
You cannot weep but only look down
blankly, unseeing.
Numbed pain does its work
like anaesthetic holding off the anguish
of a pain too hard to bear.

You become inhuman
not in the way of the agents of death,
who deny you both food and shelter,
warmth and love,
but more because in the face of despair and agony,
it is impossible to be that child of God
you were made to be.

But you are not alone.
We too are dehumanized
as we witness this callous denial and misuse of humanity
– a humanity we are supposed to share.

And when we do nothing?
What is our answer
to the heart of God who made and loves us?
What is our response,
as we look on the child, cradled in your arms?

[Mr G. 23rd July 2025]

Wounded

Broken Branch, Garden of Cromwell Arms, Romsey. Photo by Mr.G

WOUNDED
Sometimes we are broken
by circumstances or events,
like a tree branch
ripped untimely from its mother.

The nerve ends which drank greedily
of the sap of life, are still now.
Jagged edges that once pulsated
with vibrant greenery,
shading and embracing
those sheltering beneath,
are signs now of death and decay.

Life can feel like that sometimes.
Is this the end?
Slivers of experience, of joy,
of very being, shiver
and contribute to the dust of the earth,
unremembered, unneeded.

Is this what life becomes for all of us?
in the end?

Yet, gazing at the ruptured tree branch,
there is a certain beauty,
not simply a reflection of a life that was,
a contribution which a part of nature
makes to the whole of living,
but rather a symbol of our own part
in the cyclical journeys of the earth.

That which wounds us; breaks us,
is itself broken in turn.
We all belong to the same tree,
the same roots.

Knowing that is itself a kind of healing,
and a defence against all that would harm us.

[Mr G. 12 July 2025]
inspired by a fallen tree branch and a current sense of uncertainty.