The schools shut in the UK yesterday. I went to the gates to collect my younger son. I was worried i would cry. But, as i got there i saw the daffodils bobbing in the breeze, their petals escaping around the green iron bars of the school fence. They were peeping out, saying ‘can we come too?’….normally its so busy i don t ever see the yellow trumpets but yesterday they struck me. I stood there and wrote this poem . It helped articulate the jumble of feelings i had inside.
celebrating my new home.
To an evening adventure….a poetry society workshop. We listened to poems about objects and then had a crack at making poems about some of the fascinating objects tha ad been brought along… I chose the glove stretchers…
Madness, really
The lengths we go
Skin held tight tight
So blood won’t flow
And tools invented
That actually prevented
Movement.
Fetching.
Stretching
Once on
The kid would grip
Dainty dancing tips
Of fingers numb
Their wearers dumb.
As yet
No etiquette
For bare hands
To run the gauntlet
I’ve missed a couple of days….sorry xxx
This poem is about how things can twist and change so easily and wondering what would happen if we could ‘backdate’ an encounter
Sometimes when I am sitting
Drinking coffee
Dreaming of you
I imagine what it would be like
If we could turn back the clocks
To when we were not pitted and scarred
By the tiny cuts and pricks of disappointment and lost hope
When our eyes shone bright
And we saw light and laughter as our due
not as a bonus
A special offer
But on tap. Limitless
I like to think that if we’d met in those early times
I would have recognised your worth
Your goodness and honesty
Pushing you forward
Shouting “me! Me!”
As i lazily fished.
Or did we need the lows to signpost this high?
Did sadness and pain provide strange relief?
Perhaps
But now is now
And quite how
We got here is not key
What really counts
What lights my heart
Is loving you as you love
Me
The youngest feels he’s been left out
The elder is impatient
And I as parent wonder at
Sibling dynamics ancient
Today my poem must be swift
A rhyme instead of sonnet
As I have got to do my chores
So four lines are my Limit
We all are meant to have a tribe
a family that we can live inside
a group who understands our ways
Accepting us
And yet these days
It seem to me that this coherence
Is suffering mass interference
We don’t sit down and talk direct
We click and type on t’internet
And it is easy for us
to believe
That what we share
can true love weave.
Under the shelter of our screens
We share our secrets and our dreams.
We think we know to whom we type.
We think the warnings are just hype.
And then
The cut
The slice
The hack
And we remember
What didn’t stack
We see through lies
We see straight in
Naivity was our big sin.
We see how tricks made us judge badly
And share with those who now seem, sadly
To be real crooks.
Not tribe.
Not kin.
You were not heard.
My sage advice?
A strong password.
Having Parkinsons means I have to learn patience….one day….
Wait with me
While I tremble
Wait with me
While I falter
Wait with me
While I regroup
While I reset
While I restart
Wait with me
Or not
I will be here
Until I can walk
Elsewhere.
i
