And how the the light comes in.

Let your lips meet gently,
the top one resting against the lower,
touching with tenderness
your own skin to skin.

Forefinger propped on chin,
I let the others dangle,
like leaves on a branch;
how softly gravity tugs them downwards.

Let heart beat quietly,slowly
as the blood circulates
carrying its music,
a river,
following the path of least resistance.

How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow,
touching it kindly as with tiny open fingers,
helping and being helped.

How the hair on the head
floats
on the breeze,
like tentacles of an octopus
waving goodbye.

Top eyelid loves the lower one;
as we blink they touch
like lovers kissing swiftly
behind a tree.

and how the light comes in
we see a world.
[mine may not be yours]
but the blink of my eyelid
sends waves through the air,
so we’re all touching and being touched,
lips kissing each other,
kiss all living creatures.

skin to skin.
air to air.

And inside us,the rich darkness
of creative night
transforms,in turn,
these touches
into dreams.

This variegated colour

In between the darkness and the bright,

Graded shades of grey and lilac lie.

These variegated colours give delight.

And from my soul, I hear a gentle sigh.

As we live, we dwell in mysteries;

Must take decisions based on various views.

And unknown memories from our history

Emphasis the old , see not the new.

For true perception, humility is key,

Not for moral reasons but for sight.

The emptiness lets flood creative seas.

Allows bright rays of loving, guiding light.

We need to know we do not know at all.

And, trembling, hold the doors of vision wide.

So gentle should be judgements when we fail.

Then errors we’ll appreciate, not hide.

We must deal with life unknown, unclear;

Perception is a better guide than fear.

Then March will bring the new

0nly a damp darkness shows

winter’s here

only that darkness knows

the shadows of fear

only the pale low sun

lights cloudy sky

only the daylight comes

where dead leaves lie

only an invisible life

harbinger of spring

so much good hidden

yet time will bring

only the winter sky

only as clouds go by

dead leaves keep creatures warm

in the winter storm

then March will bring the new

buds, for me, for you

Being educated is more than getting “information”

Trying to understand:

in an information culture,

evocation is more important;

explicit saying counts against us.

People need to be well

into believing

being educated is more

than information:

the incoherencies

what they’re saying,

the musicality

of people’s voices

and intonations;

would get more

from them.

Effectively, psychoanalysis is

something other, not the coherences;

it listens for words

that are saying more

e,
t’s got something to do with being;

it’s a form of listening,

not distracted by incoherence

but evoked by it.

Like the haze of opening leaf buds in spring time….

I see a haze of hair on your head
like the softness of just opening leaf buds in spring.
The chemo is over,and you wait relieved and letting that
take you for a while before you start to face the next stage.
Will your Spring turn to a warm enchanting Summer
or has the cancer,as they say “spread.”
Just for now,you’re in that lull
so in three weeks time you will not be
arriving for another session of drugs
and days of sickness.I see the light fuzz which reminds me
of how the cat’s fur grew back after her surgery
and she,being unable to reflect or question,
leaped from the fence top onto next door’s kitchen roof;
no thought in her mind of stitches breaking.
How beautifully the patterned fur returned
and the vulnerable skin was covered again.
Oh,to look into those eyes and see you dream
about mice that live behind the shed
and how you sat watching for hours
and how you were alive till the very last moment.
Then , all of a sudden,you were gone.Pray it will not be so for ,the fragile,loving human
now waiting and living,hoping for what you took for granted…
a “normal” life span Or maybe just three quarters of one
would be satisfactory;would be a beneficence
such as trees feel when the sap turns and begins to flow back.
bringing life out of the darkness of earth and soil.
And another Summer comes at the right time
and we find it,shall we say,satisfactory.

The consolation of philosophy by W S Merwin

wp_20161103_09_44_01_pro-2-222222

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/41124

BY W. S. MERWIN

Thank you but

not just at the moment

I know you will say

I have said that before

I know you have been

there all along somewhere

in another time zone

I studied once

those beautiful instructions

when I was young and

far from here

they seemed distant then

they seem distant now

from everything I remember

I hope they stayed with you

when the noose started to tighten

and you could say no more

and after wisdom

and the days of iron

the eyes started from your head

I know the words

must have been set down

partly for yourself

unjustly condemned after

a good life

I know the design

of the world is beyond

our comprehension

thank you

but grief is selfish and in

the present when

the stars do not seem to move

I was not listening

I know it is not

sensible to expect

fortune to grant her

gifts forever

I know

Elemental as a storm

A force  far deeper than our anger

Elemental as a storm,

Annihilating all before it.

Terror does our rage inform.

This ancient self feels  we are threatened

Runs to  rise and to protect;

Most murderous when  we’re most alarmed

Rage  an enemy detects.

Over-riding other feelings,

Depriving us of  wits to think

Like a nuclear  tsunami

Disconnecting human links.

Reddened vision,focused,narrowed

Eyes locked onto enemy.

All the wider context losing,
Wiping out  good memories

Like a mother tiger fighting,

With the cornered eagle’s force

We will destroy  what we think other

Without   feeling our remorse.

Nature gave this to protect us;

Yet  our  perception's often wrong.

Once the flood of feeling takes us

All reflections seem too long

Later, if we see our victims,

Will we know when we have erred?

For  hate deceives ourselves and others

When our inmost terror’s  bared.

How can we step back and ponder,

See life from a wider view?

How can we become less blinded,

See our world and see it new?

Succumb  not to final despond.

Succumb not to your despair.

Often there are some who see.

Often  some preserve their care.

Tempered by reflective wisdom

Rage  can calm  when understood.

When we find another being

Who can withstand   this  Tiber's flood.

That’s why I said three.

I remember that wool coat she wore even in summer;
Blue with ridges of black running horizontally.
We walked along the bright beach at Rhyl
It was Sunday morning;I has a new missal
I think I lost it with its gold edged pages that morning
I was happy to be alone with her
Just left primary school.
Hardly ever was alone with her to talk.
She seemed almost happy ;three years of widow-hood
Had almost knocked her down.
She seemed for a few minutes
The woman she used to be.
When you lose one parent, you lose three.
The one left is not the one she used to be
And their conjunction had another being
That’s why I said three.

Mainly struggling

narcissus2017-1-1 About the journey, what to say,
That the infinite task was finite,
That what seemed impossible is almost done?
Mainly struggling with interior problems
Projected onto this heap of clothes and books
Maybe I took the wrong path, made a detour I didn’t need.
Maybe the struggle itself made me strong enough.
Now I sit weary, with a mug of tea by my side.
A channel opened and I was able to receive your gifts.
Now it’s not dark but a grey cloud is hanging low.
It feels like spring again

Why did they not tell us?

Playing on the high wires of space-time
Holding time back for an instant then diving
Into the unmapped depths and deeps
Pulling space here and there
Why did they not tell us, music has its own geometry
Like on the Spanish guitar , one second is not the same as another
One holds back then runs, another steps out and waits.
It’s the mild tension and music in our bones that makes us sing and dance.
And they try to capture this on graph paper, oh so neat!
Maybe that is just to stop us falling off the edge of the world
As we gyrate.And is this not what the birds say in their whirling?
As we trudged home from school was it not this we longed for?

It runs in the family

Oh,yes,I do lovely handwriting

Just like my dad.

It runs in the family

And I like chip sandwiches with butter

It runs in the family.

No, I can’t do cryptic crosswords.

Or enigmatic looks.

It runs not in the family.

I read too many clever books

Instead of earning money.

It just runs in the family.

Yes, we are all music freaks.

We listen to Schubert and Schoenberg all night.

It runs in the family.

We are all impolite.

But we can’t help it cos

It runs in the family.

Yes, we all use four letter words,

It’s a free country, besides,

It runs in the family!

And no we can’t write poetry, you see

Writing doesn’t run in my family.

But, we all practice monogamy,

So far, though, unsuccessfully,because

Adultery runs in the family.

Which puts a slightly different complexion on the phrase

“It runs in the family”

But, alas, all of my ancestors are dead.

It runs in the family!

The top deck of the bus

The bus is late and I’m
Thinking of what you said,
trying to understand, but
I’ve never met you, so
I have nothing but written words
Which, however beautiful, may not give
enough for me to truly imagine
the depths of your heart.
My legs hurt and I have a cane
But I don’t like it.I can’t accept
my own infirmity, my troubles,
my pains, my disagreements, my mistakes.
Rain falls over me and drips down the lens
in my spectacles, as if the world is weeping
the tears I can’t shed.
If I cried now, standing at the bus stop,
for all the years of pain
no-one would know, they’d
think it was just
raindrops running down my cheeks.
The bus comes, but it’s half term…
The shops are too crowded, I can’t
Stand in queues…imagine how most of you
say it’s boring.Well, I’d love to do it
but I’ve decided the pain is greater
than the rewards.
The bus driver stops at a place where
the pavement has been lowered to allow
the owner of this house to drive
their car into the front garden
so they won’t need to buy
a resident’s parking permit.
It makes it a harder task to descend
from the bus and I hope he won’t
start while I’m still getting down.
In the coffee bar are exhibits from
a local museum, and I think, one day
my cane and my watch from Argos,
my shopping bag with a picture of Monet-
such vulgarity…..
they may be in a museum too…
along with my door keys
my bike lock and my spectacles
and will somebody try to conjure me up
in their imagination.
Someone who used to like Topology
Knitting, writing and holding hands with lovers
on the top deck of the bus
crossing central London without noticing
anything except their reflections in the eyes
of the other.
Light bounces to and fro.
My mind shuts down, the words
packed away in boxes, till there’s only
you and me and a few elementary particles
trying to recreate the world
with the big bang
that will end it all.

I can’t say what I want.

As I reflect, I am caressing one hand with the other,
the way I might apply hand lotion.
Or my lover might.
My elbows are on the arms of this old chair.
When I am puzzled, I place
the palm of my right hand
Over the back of the left and pull it to and fro,
as if to ease out a thought;
ask for a gift,
or pull it out of this hand by magic.
I write a line then sit up straight.
My lips are pursed;
I look up as if asking God to help
but I’m looking inwards
where a dream image may float by.
My left foot taps on the carpet,
calling the dead to return.
Now I’m  kneading my hands, I am anxious.
I  am uncertain.
I can’t say what I want.
I  intertwine my fingers, pull on them both ways
while looking out of the window.
The sap is rising  in the shrubs
and though no leaves  open
The branches and twigs have more color
than last year.
But you were here last year.
I bite my lip and narrow my eyes;
Who am I fighting?
Now my hands stretch and relax;
I smile.
The mind lives in the body.
Where?
The mind is the body.
How?
I frown in confusion and slight anger
at him for going.
It’s coffee time.
The door bell rings.
I stand up.

Watercolour love

Like ancient watercolour paintings washed by rain,
Our hearts had mingled,yet our separate selves remained.
Two watercolour pictures without frames,
Became one picture over time;
Yet two of us still there.
Our colours blended gradually
Till shades and hues were shared.
I loved your colours intermixed with mine:
Together they became a new design.
A watercolour image made and stroked by rain
I, too, must go, yet our Watercolour Love ever remains

NOW THERE IS NO VERTICAL

When you struck me,I vibrated like a kettle drum,
then as smaller percussions and repercussions
echoing from all the glassy surfaces
creating a balletic geometry of sound tracks
in space and time.

When you knocked me down,
I fell against her and her and her;
we were like a row of skittles
and we all went down with the lifeboat;
The infinite chain of being is.

When you hit me,the Fall spread across the world
Now there is no Vertical
All is undivine and graceless.
By the Rod it’s ruled

When you left me,I left myself,the world,the rocks,dry land
I weighed down sank to the ocean bed
with coral eyes
gazing.

When you struck my mind
I became an instrument of a foreign power
Singing a song I didn’t know.

When the glass was smashed
the splinters flew into all our hearts.
You didn’t know what we couldn’t see.

I lay on barren ground and gave birth
To my own Creator in the desert

Rage

A force  far deeper than our anger

Elemental as a storm

Annihilating all before it

Terror makes our rage  perform

This  force thinking self is threatened

Runs to  rise and to protect,

Most murderous when  we’re most alarmed

Rage an enemy detects.

Over-riding other feelings

Depriving of the power to think

Like a nuclear  tsunami

Disconnecting human links.

Reddened vision,focused,narrow;

Eyes locked onto enemy’s

All the wider context losing,

Wipes out  our good memories

Like a mother tiger fighting,

And the cornered eagle’s force;

We will destroy  what we think other

Without  bitter,pained remorse.

Nature made such to protect us;

Yet  our  perception can be wrong.

Once the flood of feeling takes us

All reflections seems too long

Later, if we see our victims,

Will we know that we have erred?

For  hate deceives ourselves and others

When our inmost terror’s  bared.

How can we step back and ponder,

See life from a wider view?

How can we become less blinded,

So  we see our world anew?

Succumb  not to final despond

Succumb not black despair.

Often there are those who see.

Often  there are those that care.

Tempered by reflective wisdom

Rage can change  when understood.

When we find another being

Who helpd contain our frightful flood.

Boundary

As we come nearer,

I feel your warmth.
Warmth draws me in
I see you here.
I touch you tenderly.
My hand
on your face,
on your skin,
acknowledges your being.
At this boundary of the world and you,
we touch.
I feel that peaceful breath,
the spirit,the wholeness of the flesh.
Touching gently,
we acknowledge the Otherness
the holiness of life itself,
in the form of the Beloved.

Like new mown grass

13335795_717967215009826_3551374442510483070_n Nerve endings shriek
Like new mown blades of grass
Arms are tender,feel raw inside
As if the hands can’t deal with loss
I satisfy them with scented lotion
They want to retract into my body
I have no shell to protect me.
Tension makes me steely.
But the hands can’t lie
Thin and bony,no fat to cover
The nerves give out a message
Lost,loveless,lonely
Touch me with your invisible glance.
Embrace me with your eternal mind.

I call it stranger

The word is right yet destitute,
Does not fit the sentence
Has no place.
The word is spoken rarely with no pleasure
Is not welcome where it reaches
Has no anchor.
It has no companions,hence no prosody.
Can’t be knitted;
Has no mooring.
The word is dying. I say it never lived;
Cannot be mentioned,
Creates no order.
The word is made from letters
Yet they congeal and kill
Ironically ,some call it liver.
I call it stranger.

How Mary invented Toad in the Hole

When Mary was newly married, women were still expected to do all the cooking.
Oh,dear she sighed as she got off her sports bike and went onto the house.
I am so exhausted but we can just have sausages tonight,she thought.
Stan was very fond of pancakes so to augment the simple meal she decided to make some batter in the liquidiser and she even had some fresh lemons.
Emile was only a kitten but could speak a few words in English
What is for my dinner,he asked pensively.
Would you like some sausages,Mary asked him thoughtfully.
OK, the cat said in a grumbling voice.I’d love a kipper more though
Just like Stan.Stan had been out in a fishing boat from Whitby once.When they were up there he and Mary visited the smoking parlour where herrings where smoked with real smoke.I don’t believe it was provided by men smoking cigarettes though.It was from a fire.
Mary put the sausages into a roasting tin and browned them under the grill.Then she put them down on the table to wait while she got the batter out of the liquidiser so she could wash the goblet before it got sticky.All of a sudden Emile darted across the kitchen as he saw a mouse in the corner.Mary was knocked off her balance and so the batter flew out of the goblet into the roasting tin.
What a disaster.Both courses of the meal ruined in one sweep.Mary almost cried.Until she realised the batter was sizzling in the dripping so she put the roasting tin into the oven on a medium heat…. and so it was a new dish was invented
When Stan arrived home he was attracted by the lovely smell.Not from Mary,no, from the oven.
What are you cooking,darling, he cried.
Mary was embarrassed as she didn’t want to tell him how she fell over.Why it’s new dish I have got from a very new cookery book. that has not yet been published.
Stan thought that was rather odd but as he hoped for some hanky panky later on he remained silent,a tactic I highly recommend
Mary cooked some sprouts and carried the food to the table which Stan had laid.
Delicious, he cried as he ate the hot batter.What’s for pudding,dearest?
Mmmm, yoghurt, Mary answered,or hot grilled spiced peaches with thin cream.
I know you like Jam Roly Poly or Spotted Dick but I’ve not had time to do that.We can have one at the weekend.
I’ll just have an apple,he cried.Will you play, Eve?
And so play all of us.

The best place

Nuneham_2016-5 [800x600] The hospital was the best place for you to die.
Nurses, neat as sparrows, ran to and fro
Blankets used in the Himalayas warmed you
They kept you
Clean and tidy.

For three hours
The Sacred and the Profane intersected
I sang you away on a river of music
And you floated out of our world
Hearing my childlike high voice.

Maybe you thought I was washing up
Or making you a drink in the kitchen;
And I was your mother as well.
The good mother who kept her premature child alive
Who kept a good larder
Baked bread and played games with you and your Dad.

Did you know what was happening?
I think you did and you wanted me to help you.
Help you out?
How a little audience had gathered.
Now we have no rites,the chaplain was absent
Absent too the priest.

I had to make it up…. like a game,but it was real.
You smiled and winked as if to say
I’m sticking around but you won’t see me.
So much love in your eyes…
What can I do but be glad?
And be sad….but we made it.

Brothers and Sisters

Birds,unlike humans, can fly across the barriers
Avoid the checkpoints,need no identity papers, permits
Or gold stars.
Brothers,why were you separated?
Why could Palestine not be left as one where ,
as in Andalusia before the madness of Inquisition,
you lived together 500 years of peace
Until Christian conformity and suspicion
Tormented and killed you both?
It is we you should be fighting against
Not each other
Are you our own Roman Games?
You ,in the Arena we watch on our screens
We can turn them off but you,brothers and sisters, are still there
.And your children.
What remains for any of us?

A pool of winter light

Their eyes drew me,
And their eyes draw me again
Into a pool of winter light
Golden from the low sun.
I swim in it
Like a hawk flows on the wind
Over the depths,
Of life.
Contained by a white china cup,
I’m your reflection now
Drowning in the slanting sunlight
Like a stone in a lake.
Falling deeper until I find
the creative mud
with which I mingle
no longer a stone
but a soft flowing stream of sensations
which meets with joy
the earth’s depths and presence.
And something new will grow.

In the desert

Tangled lives

She walks in a deserted landscape of monotone colours.
Big with child,she crosses this rough terrain alone,
without a Joseph to protect or a donkey to carry her.
no inn nor stable is here.No cattle nor sheep
nothing alive.
Now she feels her labour pains coming;
Lies down amongst the rocks to wait
Here is an anonymous,faceless figure.
Pronounces himself a doctor.
She labours; he picks up her son.No Messiah nor Oedipus;
Without speaking,he conveys to her,this child has died.
Not ever held in the arms of hie mother
Nor father either.
He’s tossed, light as a few feathers,
light as a bird
onto a pile of bodies nearby.
Whose unwanted children are these?
Stil lying flat and weary with grief,
she observes her child-
one of many there.
Days pass and strength returns.
Stands now and walks over to say,Farewell.
The child opens his eyes;
Mother,they say,shining.
Holds him and presses him into herself for warmth…
Which way to go and when?
No signs, no maps…
Is there a right way?
Is there a guide?
Why was she journeying this way?
She remembers nothing
She has lost almost everything .
Steps forward..and walks on.
What other choice is there?

Division

Division
In the sky,half dark,half light.
Will we get more rain?

How the mind fills up
With prediction and fear
Gone is trust in God.

Yet deep down we know
All shall be well;be it so.
Who can interpret?

Now we have no souls
Yes,we are social constructs.
Am I still myself?

Yet why throw away
The wisdom of the ages?
We know what soul means.

And we trust in God
More than we trust our leaders.
Who are wrecked by power.

We need to worship
Not gold,not brand new kitchens,
Something beyond us.

God predates our words
So he speaks in burning bush
Or in a fierce light.

The bush is not so hot
Compared to a new shopping Mall
The intercom’s bust.

He can’t get through now
We have erected idols
Worship our plastic.

We can’t go back and repeat the experience

We were sitting as usual by the window
gazing at the wintry trees
You began to cry out:
The house is under attack,
A storm is coming .
The glass windows will shatter
We’ll be stabbed.
We’ll be injured
We’ll be killed. I must get outLooking out,.I saw only the calm bare branches

Looking out,.I saw only the calm bare branches
Of the maple
And two wood pigeons in the fir tree
were chuckling to each other.
The wind had not changed.I know it’s midwinter with the bitter
breeze with an edge to it ,like a knife.
The sun low like lemonade in an almost emptied glass.
Sending light through the forsythia onto the bent old fence.I turned to you puzzled
Reached out my hands to comfort;
But you shouted
Keep away
as you got your thick coat out
and ran from the back door right into the dark woods.If there were real danger,why did you desert me?
Years later you told me of bad news you’d had.
Seemed like the inside and outside got confused.
I became a Fascist.I was a flaxen Anglo-Saxon.
I was Hitler’s grand-daughter.
I was a descendant of the Borgia Pope.
A witch , a demon, a torturer.
You believed that
I would break my glass; cut your face
with the jagged edges and laugh
like we once saw in a film.

Unlike in science,
We can’t go back and repeat the experience
as if it were an experiment.
See if we were drawing the right conclusions

If you’d stayed a few minutes more
You might have realised
You were half asleep
And dreaming.
It was a daymare that escaped.

Once gone,you never returned
To the house where it seemed the glass broke
into shards and cut you to shreds.
And a woman loved you.

I don’t blame you
though I weep.
We are often deceived by our imaginations
We see not what’s here
But what we most fear.
And flee the human contact
Which, alone, might help.I always leave the door ajar
And some food on the kitchen table;
In case you come back hungry and tired.

It was your mind that shattered,not the glass…
And that’s much harder to mend.
But it can be done
If you stop fighting.
And let the inner seas flow free.
You need a hand
But it also frightens you.
Besides, my hand is not strong enough to hold you.
Only to touch you gently
To say how sad I am.

Seems like the ice is inside me

Air,bitter they call it,whispers to the sweet planes of my face,
Shrieks shrill to my cavities,ears,mouth and nose;penetrates all that’s open;
Probing like a surgeon’s knife,to see what healing damage it might do.
A frozen finger touches my heart;
Seems like the ice is inside me sending urgent warnings.

On that high inner mountain,you’ll feel nothing at all…
You’ll be the snowman, a bloody icicle;
An Old Testament of Endurance;
A legend like the pale polar bears, snuffling uneasily around the summit
Touching a woman’s heart is the quickest way to gain her attention
I’m looking at you;you’re in pieces.You’re a puzzle,a jigsaw with two double dynamos;
A broken racing bicycle crossed with two ice skates.
Ten motorboats crashed into a yacht and abandoned on a Swiss lake in winter.
Can I leave you scattered like this?

You’re a man in a penguin suit;
Diplomatic, attached with the coldest reserves.
You’re a spy from the court of the Vatican City
A screaming Pope;
An unbaptized demon.
A lost angel with no hands;
A half hung side of meat;
An unbroken rampant horse deluded by winds east.

We were split,one from another;
Split in ourselves too–thoughts and emotions
Are raw like meat,weeping as they are pulled apart into islands.

I see there’s a cold window between us.
I rub it with my damp coat sleeve,like children do,licking on it;
And see your eyes gleam in hope like greenish diamonds.
Yet I can’t touch you, until we learn how to melt glass.
Are you trying too as you smile weakly,
desperately holding onto this impossible slippery glass?
We’ll try to reach you at the bottom of whatever frozen ocean you sigh in. to

Here you are,a flat and two-dimensional Prospero.
You rise like a non-U-boat already firing at the upper orders.
Here you are walking through what seemed like ruins
And you are not just alive, but burning.

Owl

My husband came from Durham so I was fascinated by this owl.One of his friends said he had some in a holly tree outside his bedroom window when he was a child


short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale's edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.

on windside,careful sight,
may swoop to prey
and away.

your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh,silence,
oh,wind on green,
oh, earth,
sky.

immense your held vision;
sphere without centre,
pied geometer of flight,
sketch your descent and ascent.

trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home.

She’s my mother

The good things my mother taught me

are too numerous to list

here or even on a large hoarding

I could rent for a week by the train station.

She gave me my blue eyes and my love of stories

and tolerated the fact that, I like my dad I would learn

for the sake of it and not with a view to earning money.

She praised my sense of colour though not my three-year research

scholarship to a place of higher learning

would rather I curled my hair and smiled a little at boys.

But my destiny was determined by the fact that I never could

master that Singer sewing machine she had

so I had to learn Theoretical Physics to make up for it.

And here I am now,thinking of her homemade bread

her showing me how to read music

and the names of the keys on the piano.

I know I was a big disappointment in not marrying into money

or becoming a saint or virgin and martyr ,well martyr anyway

She always believed me to be a virgin, even after marriage;

and it’s true I was a virgin with regard to common sense

getting on in society and all related issues.

Some ordinary female knowledge never penetrated me

so I’d sit in the rain wondering what tolerance was

or how Pascal got to lie in bed so much,and whether I could too

because I got creative ideas in bed—

not what you may be thinking of—–

She always changed the sheets and washed our clothes, however, short of money we were…

And made us dresses from scraps of fabric

That’s how we learned geometry,with the trapeze dress……

Numbers we learned from the stars and excitement from playing with the boys in that old brickfield.where they went into kilns

Strange what makes us who we are,but

the biggest contribution comes from mothers

and just to please her I hope as well as all my academic success

one day I’ll make myself a dress out of some rare print

embodying simultaneously both male and female design and shape

And she’ll look down and say,

She always had her head in the clouds,in a book,in the smoke

patterns from Dad’s cigarettes, in a dream and a whirl,in a puzzle

but she did have a good sense of color.

Yeah,she is my daughter

Yeah,once I imagined I must be adopted but

Yeah.I’m her daughter.

She’s my mother.

My mother

Leaf buds

I see a light fuzz of hair on your head

like the softness of just opening leaf buds in spring.

The chemo is over,and you wait relieved and letting that

take you for a while before you start to face the next stage.

Will your Spring turn to a warm enchanting Summer

or has the cancer,as they say ,”spread.”

Just for now,you’re in that lull

so in three weeks time you will not be

arriving for another session of drugs

and days of sickness.

I see the light fuzz which reminds me

of how the cat’s fur grew back after her surgery

and she,being unable to reflect or question,

leaped from the fence top onto next door’s kitchen roof;

no thought in her mind of stitches breaking.

How beautifully the patterned fur returned

and the vulnerable skin was covered again.

Oh,to look into those eyes and see you dream

about mice that live behind the shed

and how you sat watching for hours

and how you were alive till the very last moment.

Then , all of a sudden,you were gone.

Pray it will not be so for the fragile,loving human

now waiting and living,hoping for what you took for granted…

a “normal” life span Or maybe just three quarters of one

would be satisfactory;would be a beneficence

such as trees feel when the sap turns and begins to flow back.

bringing life out of the darkness of earth and soil.

And another Summer comes at the right time

and we find it, shall we say, satisfactory?

Trees

Trees are the mainstay of the natural world
Standing up high over the grass,the flowers,the shrubs,

Exerting a strange and powerful fascination.

Accepting the insects and birds that dwell on them,

It’s the Kingdom of Trees,the Heaven of the Garden.

On the red maple’s trunk about five feet from the ground

I see the marks whee Daisy sharpened her claws.

[She died just before Labour lost the Election,1992.

Twenty years from now

Those marks will be 10 feet high.]

A gentle cat,

She found peace in

This green shady garden,choosing which tree to scratch,

Whether to climb into the old apple tree extending its branches far out towards the holly tree

That is the habitation of sparrows,safe and sweet.

Cat could only watch them from her perch.

Oh,what are we doing wasting our lives shopping malls,

When we could take instruction from the trees?

We could take lessons from the birds that dwell there,

And ask the advice of flowers,or directions from honey bees.

What could the ants tell us if we had time to hear.

The garden is a holy place.Trees are good at being trees.
Think about it

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My husband came from Durham so I was fascinated by this owl.One of his friends said he had some in a holly tree outside his bedroom window when he was a child

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