This new poem Salt is one that I shared as part of a poetry and music evening in an autumnal candlelit garden in Frome. Each line of the poem is an acronym of SALT, inspired by journeys in France and Greece this summer, which together make up all the mineral grains of wisdom we need to be as salt in the world. The poem says it all really, and is dedicated to the countless people who are, and have been for me ‘salt of the earth’ during this year’s journey through loss; walked and pilgrimed with me, swam the big waves with me, offered me a shoulder to cry on, home to live in, words to soothe and also some times sting to bring out a taste for life I was yet to find; and joy and love that has purified and healed. You know who you are. Thank you.

Finally, by the end of the poem, the layered stack of sentences leaves us with a ‘pillar of salt’, a symbol from ancient folklore and the Jewish old testament account of Lot, a story reminiscent of the Greek myth of Orpheus, and the current refugee crisis. As Sodom falls into chaos around them, angels plead for him to take his family, leave the city and everything they own, and not look back. But his wife (Ado or Edith in some traditions) turns back to look, and is turned into a pillar of salt. The Hebrew for “looked back” means more than to glance over one’s shoulder. It means “to regard, to consider, to pay attention to”. So lines of the poem also stand as a reminder and encouragement; to purify where we put our gaze in the face of loss and, hard as it may be, to not cling on with nostalgia to what needs to be left behind, to make space to taste what is new.