•••

I’ve had a vision:
Of me, a mother
Shedding my naive brand of womanhood
To take on the new role
Shedding childishness to bequeath it
Into the tiny hands that trust mine
And O Lord,
may my own hands be the gentlest,
the softest, let them always be open
And high up to You, O Lord, and
may my arms be warm and May my smile be wide and funny— May it make this child laugh and O Lord—
Make me this woman you’ve chosen me to be as mother.
Most of all minimize me to clear the way
For You— and Your ways
And for this growing, new, special, unique, never-known-to-the-world person.
I now know how you view us, your children. There is no other than that which I’ve created, held, loved, and brought into the world.
What a sweet vision.

•••

to see the love of your life
Sleeping with afternoon sun beaming in
Making dust glitter
Making you breathe deeper
Making a smile slip on your face
You realize this is life, it’s simple and good. It’s not all its cracked up to be, sometimes it needs to be much less. And it’s better that way.
It’s silly too,
That you craved spaghetti at 11 weeks,
Griped to yourself about going alone to the store as he napped

(and how dare he!)
(and doesn’t he know you’d like a nap too!)

But you go alone

(Because spaghetti was more important in the moment)
(and don’t we truly pick what’s important when it comes to?)

And you realize your moments are less quiet and alone than they used to be
They’re filled with a beautiful rhythmic music of life— of which I’m sometimes off-beat—
But the alone ones, moments, leave room for yourself.

And you come home with your ingredients,
and a lot less anger
And you see him, napping in the dust-glittery (sometimes rather messy) home you share
Yes this is life;

It should be a little slower.
with a few more of those alone moments
Where you can feel the beat
Of the music and your own heart a bit better .
And you can eat your spaghetti.
And your love can nap.

If content is king,
clarity is queen.
Are you brave enough
to rule the world?

Oh sleeping beauty, whence thine prince
To kiss thee from thy sodden dreams?
One hundred years and two score since
Thy last farewell -- Who now redeems
This world awash for loss of thee?
Who now shall stand thine shining knight
To guard thee for eternity
And bring thee safe to heaven's height?

Oh sleep well beauty, flaxen maid,
With lavender laced in thine hair,
No earthly sin to be repaid,
Awash with frailty, love and prayer --
Oh sleep well beauty, pure and chaste,
Undying maiden, casket lass,
And watch the world pass by in haste
As thou do rest beneath thy glass.

Two birds
waiting for seeds
squirrels hog the feeder
boy girl cardinals a patient
red pair

HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiseled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Huges again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"    

*

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 masterpiece “The Waste Land” was originally titled “He Do the Police in Different Voices,” a quote from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend.

I went to see Ted Hughes at the Royal Festival Hall after an extensive day and night shiftwork in mental health for about four days as staff went sick or simply didn't turn up.. Couldn't remember if I was to meet my ******* Thursday in Friday street or not or wot. I was right under his lectern and he looked immense ;and a lot like Sam the Eagle in the Muppet Show in looks and manner. I kept falling asleep between syllables and would **** myself awake and every time I did so I would get that fierce Hughesian glare!