When you’re walking 
Unknown humans say hello
Its what we do
Strangers with a bond of affinity.

And walking I soothe 
This baby soul I carry
Then — no trauma, I
Think only of moving forward into life.

When you sink to the bottom
There’s only hope
I walk among good men
Unknown.

All these very small beauties 
In a big landscape 
Remind me — that I too am
A small telling of its story. 

Strange fits of passion have I known
— long time ago I ran 
To the rivers, to the streams, lost on
A day as pale as roses are.


By Michael.  LDHAS, December 2021

Refuge from the Ravens is supported by the Heritage Fund. In 1798, Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge sparked a literary revolution — poems in everyday language, telling of people on the margins of society. 200 years later, homelessness and social inequality are still with us and even on the rise. This project invited people with lived experience of homelessness and other vulnerable people to meet Wordsworth across time, replying in poetry, art and song in a Lyrical Ballads for the 21st Century.