More Poetry

My hubby brought a flashlight, as powerful as can be,

it doesn't just illuminate the stuff that's close to me.

I use it to scan the garden when I let the doggies out

just to make sure they'll be safe and no coyotes are about.

But my biggest joy are my green eyes, that I capture in the glare, 

as I look out my bathroom window, and watch them standing there.

The deer are in my back field, a family and friends, 

munching vegetation, as through the bush they wend.

I love to see them standing there, majestic and serene,

like adoring subjects, and I their much-loved queen.

But I switch off the flashlight and leave them to munch on, 

and by the early morning's light, each one of them is gone.

They'll return because they know they're safe

when they come into that place,

and I - enthralled - will watch each one

with the light upon their face.

12/11/2018

Inspired by the sight of a beautiful woody copse destroyed to make way for a housing development.

Regal trunks, strewn,
scattered like bodies on a battle field.
Once majestic providers of shade,
leafy statuesque reminders of God's power.
Gone.
Hewn down.
Forest ravaged by man and metal.
Woods no more,
just rotting limbs
and earth
and sadness.
Soon beauty will be replaced by houses,
tarmac will cover the red earth,
money will flow.
Gone the life giving oxygen
to be replaced by
destruction,
pollution.
Gone the silence of the
cool, damp shadiness.
Gone the birdsong
and woody scents.
Gone forever,
destroyed for mans greed.
Soon,
no one will remember
that once trees stood here,
majestically holding court.
Soon
there may be no more trees. 

Something I wrote one day in 1999 after talking to my son on the telephone

I miss his smile,
yet see it in my mind
as his voice comes down the telephone line.
The warmth
and resonance of his tone.
I hear his laugh,
his love,as he says, "Hi mum!"
So far away,
so grown up, living his own life,
doing well.
In him am I well pleased.
Not that my affections are based on success,
I would love him were he penniless and in rags,
for he is my firstborn,
my son,
born of my want for him.
Years pass,
taller than I, he is a man now, yet still I can see
the boy he was,
blond, blue-eyed,
heart of my heart.
Pride swells within
as I think of the man he is.
My son, Christopher.
Yes, in him am I well pleased. 

Inspired by a picture that I purchased from a secondhand shop in 1998

All around, the camp is alive
with the smells and sounds of the day,
fry bread, buffalo meat hanging to dry,
skins tanning,
and the little Indian girl
walks through, content.
Her jet black hair,
braided,
adorned with beads and feathers;
soft moccasins on her feet,
and tanned fringed tunic
down to golden brown limbs.
The storyteller beckons with one finger,
and she sits at his feet,
eagerly awaiting his ancient wisdom
in the tales he weaves.
The young men are out hunting,
some of the women bring water from the river,
others make trinkets to trade with the White Man.
Under the prairie sun,
the day is good,
and the little Indian girl
holds these things dear.
Tired,
she makes her way back to her tepee,
and curls on her blanket,
drifting into soft dreams of happy things
ready for the morrow,
when the circle begins again.

A poem I wrote about my brother back in 1998 after an incident when he was biking home from Lynn to Hunstanton. 

Astride the bike, and pedalling fast,
our Jed, en route to Huns'ton wast
whence overtook by wasps, was he,
who stung with marked ferocity.

He dropped the bike and tried to run -
the wasps did follow. Oh what fun!
Five welts - their trophies on his skin -
Jed swears he'll ne'er do that ag'in!

His motorcycle stands outside,
a mass of gleaming chrome;
he revs his engine over as
he waits to take me home.
Though machine is clean and immaculate
my guy is quite a shock -
his jeans are torn and tattered
and his hair's a greasy lock.
No way could you call him handsome,
and some say he looks mean -
others think he's the ugliest that they have ever seen.
Yet, beneath the leather jacket,
the chains, the studs and hair,
if only people looked, they'd find
a soft heart beating there;
the mender of a broken wing,
a grandma's doting boy,
the volunteer who gives his all,
the painter giving joy.
They only see the jacket,
the hair, the studs and chains;
they think they know the heart beneath
and imagine ill-gotten gains.
His motorcycle stands outside,
he's waiting there for me;
I'm proud to ride behind him,
I know the man he is, you see.