Your walking right out of my life
Taking that head of bubbly curls
And a floaty smocked dress to be
Somewhere I can’t see in an ocean.

Where protocol and personalities
My arms to enfold were not meant
But I will ache inside and not hide
Till together all our hours are spent.

Never touch the ground my flower
Mummy bears witness to the days
She will catch gleaming sunbeams
On the endings of wooden spoons.

Love Grandma ***

She sits upon her mother’s knee
Her father’s off to see
All the latest drinking crews
In Windsor and Buckeroo.

The last of little darlings
In a line of brown haired beautés
Bluebell who follows the stars
While sunshine hits the hours.

What does a mother do
When daddy’s forgotten
The rent is due and baby
Blue needs a cuddle too.

Love Grandma **

There is no longer a Sycamore tree
With its variegated, sap green leaves
Bringing a fluttering in the Sringtime
A steady, shady, dream filled breeze.

Our road was accustomed to rows of pairs
To keep each company year on new year
One Winter frost was bitter, time had come
For a friendship to be severed, lost and gone.

A tree outside a house is a very special joy
Waking each morning to the sound of birds
Now only in my photographs can I recall
The splendour of this object standing straight
And tall.

Love Mary x

Along an avenue of trees
In a nearby park
Sat a young woman,
She held a camera
Inside her life
For that day.

A painfully lived life
Carefully considered
Captured in images
Of colourful trees
Sharing similarities
Of beauty.

Love Mary x

Where ever the walk went
You took me
Carried me home on your shoulders
Showed me a newness bright
We picked up the remains
Of each day
Placing them in a memory
And I loved you father
A love that was so safe
That included me
Every mile of you.

Love Mary x

Here I stand in the row
Waiting to get my prize
The needlework certificate
I choose a chess set
Not to play chess
But because I liked
Shapes .

They would be my family
Mum and dad ,
Prefects at school
Brothers and sisters
An unusual menagerie
Of souls
On a black and white board.


Love Mary x

The broken biscuits lay in a tin
An ordinary oblong tin
With turquoise pattern
And pink embossed flowers
Gold edged to finish the job.

How many times I visited
That tin on the middle shelf
In the top half of a cupboard,
Sawn door, to allow for fridge,
And quietly took out the tin.

Broken biscuits were my delight
All shapes and sizes tasty bites
Wafers,  bourbon, custard creams
Rich tea, digestive all suited me
Sometimes fig sandwich, pleased.

Love Mary

Stand with me by the fence
Where all our life has been
The entrance to our hearts
And back again.

And if you have to weep
Not into the flowers
For they get enough rain
Love me, kiss me again.

Love Mary x

In Summer when the dew lays down
And fragrance sears the sky on high
We walk where yellow cowslips dine
And we go so slow.

Love Mary **

Picking icicles from window
Sharp and cold under cut nail
And wetness into cuff of dress
With water in stains on wall.

Each breath a melt and flow
Drips as metamorphosis go
The sky a heavenly promise
Of snowflight by nightfall.

Love Mary x

Whilst walking my father and I
Fell upon words that brought
Out the skylight in a window
And made a dog bark for sweets
We shared words together
Hand in hand with each other
Trampling roads near shops
And under railway aqueducts
Seeing the daffodils growing free
The bubbling of stones in a brook.

Love Mary **

That warm patch of earth under the damsons
Where nothing grew but children’s feet prints
Reached high for the odd black fruit showing
Sqealched between fingers the stalk snapped
And a mouth opened to taste the sweet wines.


Love Mary

Inside where lining attaches to sleeve
The coming away had loosened there
Leaving the fragility of many winters’
And the oversewing of a tender hand.

Love Mary