We are delighted to share that two poems written by Fifth Form pupils Isla J and Nathanael W have been selected by the Wildlife Trust as part of their Science into Stories project.
Their poems will form part of a public display exploring the history and heritage of the Fens, celebrating the landscape through creative writing inspired by nature and local history.
The poems were produced as part of a collaborative project with residents at Lyncroft Care Home during the summer term, where pupils engaged in conversations and creative exchanges that inspired their final pieces.
Alongside the written work, Ciara-Rose H created a beautiful art piece using paint and wire to depict the memory of a Ramsey care home resident living with dementia. The resident recalled growing up on a farm and making traps as a small child to catch creatures – “we never hurt them, we just wanted to watch them and be near them”.
The project encouraged creativity and inspired meaningful connections between pupils and residents. One remarked “Your sessions have certainly encouraged conversations among the residents outside of your time with them” – another shared “That was lovely, do come back please!”.
This is a wonderful achievement that highlights the power of storytelling in connecting generations and deepening our appreciation of the natural world.
Ciara-Rose H
Isla J – Suits of Life
As a person, he reminded me of the sunrise –
Red running in rivulets, dancing with the clouds,
A stream of joy.
“You remind me of a goddess, and
I can’t believe that an angel like you – royalty from above –
Would choose an ordinary man like me.”
His mouth dipped down to my ear,
And his breath tickled as he murmured:
“I’m serious. I went from a Jack to a King when I met you.”
He showed me the joy one feels when encountering a child –
So full of life, laughter and love.
He made me want to skip through the meadows of imagination,
So carefully crafted in his mind,
He opened a window of possibilities that I didn’t know existed before.
His eternal youth was boundless –
But now? Nothing is the same, not one bit.
The chestnuts we used to gather at Christmas
No longer taste as smoky.
The fountains that would freeze over are no longer there.
The dances every Saturday –
Where you would grip my hand too tightly, afraid
I’d dance away with a stranger’s accent.
The sunrises have faded now that you’re gone,
The reds dull, the clouds
Dissipating into the heavens to be with you.
I should have savoured it –
The power I held over the world with you by my side.
But the goddess you thought I’d always be…
She’s disintegrating slowly.
She’s someone I no longer remember;
Just like you forgot me.
I know it wasn’t your fault, but it still hurt
A hole had formed in my once golden, bottomless heart.
Something is missing, the welding snapped apart.
And you shouldn’t have ever worried about losing me, because I was the one who lost you.
My memories, too, are becoming a haze,
Yesterday was a blur.
Who is that lady, and why is she dressed like a nurse?
I can’t recall my breakfast,
Or how I take my tea.
The only thing I remember: how you smiled at me.
I’m losing my awareness, can’t move my arms or legs.
Everything is heavy, and I am filled with dread
Over the loss of my world,
My anchor, my soul.
I can feel it, you reaching out to me.
You grasp my frail hands tightly in your leathered palms,
And I realise that I’m taking my final breaths.
But that’s okay.
Because I am going home.
To you.
Nathanael W – Untitled
Grim curtains of grey fog hang spectral drapes across the reddening hedges,
Shrouding patchwork brambles in funerary veils,
Shifting the black suits of their berries to a dull and dreary matte,
As the mournful heron’s call shivers and echoes through the lonely reeds.
All seems bereft.
A deficit of colour, of light, of life.
Hedgerow conversations die a quiet death, their noises fading,
Battered ecclesia of futility.
They cast their lines, raking and tearing apart the silent procession of the morn with a solitary:
‘Plop’
And glossy ripples spread across the water, ethereal nebulae
Drawn by these glimmering phantasms,
As if calling like to like,
Darts an arrow of colour.
It is as though the first fresh flower has been pressed, crushed to the coffin of stillness,
As all the world presses in.
Riotous brilliance, a cacophonous clash of turquoise,
Teal and titian,
Flickers, swift as quicksilver, more than mesmerising.
Undisputed, the monarch swoops, stoops, stutters,
Taking stock of the catch as it harries in to land.
It alights atop the pole, sweeping gilded beak towards those shadowed figures,
Their shoulders swathed in silken dew,
Twisting, tossing a bolt of mercurial scales to the sky.
‘Snick’
Kingfisher shoots forth and claims its bounty,
Then hurtles onwards, streaking beauty
Running a red river across the softening sky.