Dear Reader, this is a poem I wrote for a dear friend and colleague, Mike Donohoe, who was one of the best teachers I ever met. Mike used Art to teach English Language to asylum seekers and refugees from many different backgrounds – Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Georgia, Ukraine, Angola, to name but a few. His students loved him. He died suddenly with a heart attack on the street in Manchester on or around Twelfth Night.
Between Epiphany and Candlemas I shall remember
How a still and silent Love
Kept the dark watches of the night;
How you did not die alone, but with a host of angels
And the blessings of all whose lives you touched.
It is a wise man who scatters their darkness
And your Joanas and Joes will smile and shine you
All around us.
Now, stars from all the windows are taken down
And hang in this prayer.
Heav’n’s torn sheet unwinds and changes chime
Across the frosty glory
Of this bleak midwinter.
I shall remember too, how you saw His star in the east
And moved into the Mystery of
Love on earth.
Leigh Cook
