A Pocket full of crumbs: A collection of poems

‘It’s a terrible habit,’ Jan Sutch Pickard writes, ‘putting food into my pocket. This keeps happening: where the midpoint of an Iona Community pilgrimage is marked by welcome flapjack; at beach picnics with my family sharing sandy sandwiches. When I was an Ecumenical Observer, a peace monitor, on the West Bank, I was given flatbread from the taboon – the earth-oven – of my Muslim neighbours; in West Jerusalem, the Women in Black shared cookies at the end of a stressful demonstration; after church in Nablus, Palestinian Christians lingered over coffee: but I’m not good at eating and talking. The morsels go into my pocket – and later become food for the birds.’