Have you seen Delphi dancing
On the sand in the Bay
Arms outstretched to catch the moonshine
All the fragments of golden spray
And her feet scatter the sandstone
Her body sways as if to say
Listen as my heart flies skyward
On this glorious of days,
Along the beach the people gather
To watch the plaited maiden dance
Far away in her dreamland
She always gives what she has.


For dearest Delphi when she was seven.
Love Grandma ***

The skies have been overcast, lately.
Draining the flowers of colour,
Bringing Autumn varieties adjacent
To August stock.There is a tiredness
In the stormy winds, a dusting of dry leaf.
We bring water in cans to restore
The last of this Summer's glory.

And hope for just a few more days
When one can bask in the blueness
In ignorance of Winter's call;
With the months of indoors
When perfumed air is gone.
The dampness in spider's dew
Replacing our Summer song .

Mary

Citrus green of early morning sun
Interrupted by a woman’s shadow
As she looks where land meets sky
In the freshness of another Autumn.

Over the fields, past the evergreens
A silhouette of stillness newly open
Surprised in the glancing light here
A stopping place to hold ones breath.

Love Mary ***

A road of palest lime fluttering Sycamore trees
Some almost leafless, others coronets still there
Through the golden branches colbalt blue skies
Lilac bushes, the garden daisies, flower in rows.

Thinning Robinna casts shadows of dim shade
Contrasting the red Acer’s lace leaf with green
The trunk arch of handkerchief laden Foxglove
Holds open its beautiful boughs to be admired.

For Autumn spreads my walk in glorious glitter
Though the evening pulls in the coldness of year
Making the best of these last savages of seasons
Gathering leavings, the birdtable spills its seeds.

Love Mary ***

In purple checked dresses we are confronted
Behind a piano sits ‘Miss Creak’ head of house
She has one bad eye, unfixable from childhood
But plays beautifully perched on an oakwood
And fabric stool. This is our secondary school.

On the wall above the piano is a framed print
‘Madonna of the Meadows’ by the artist Bellini
I pushed a drawing of a couple intertwining
Under ‘her’ door knowing she never would have
But a boy may have felt affection for ‘that’ affliction.

Here we all ate meals, did fashion shows and sang
I was glad my dress was purple not orange or red
Went better with my blue eyes and blonde hair
The rest of the school diveded into coloured checks
To represent Shakespearean female characters.

Just opened in Wandsworth a new comprehensive
Serving all abilities, behaviours and nationalities
Cordelia, Beatrice, Juliet, Katharine,
Portia, Rosalind, Olivia, Viola a rather unsuitable
Vision for such an uptake of adolescent froth.

Miss Creak was, kindly, I wish I had always been.

Hands, rough, gather up two handfuls
Tugging the brown-gold silk into piles
Feeling the chafing on back of my neck
Its tender movement is loved as comb.

A sharp scratch from crown to the nape
Tortoiseshell plastic slightly dusty grey
Divided, plaited, and tied with bands to
Black nylon ribbons, you kiss forehead.

Love Mary ***

The insects and wild flowers
Follow the banks of ‘The Wandle’
Allowing what is hidden and not heard
Behind posted iron railings
To be noted, found on a map, imagined
Its very name conjures up the journey
Drawing one into its currents and flows
A place of beauty where time seems slow
Rippling the edges of thought, living as a space,
Exploration, given  by inclusion and exclusion
Forever to ‘wandle along’ under the sky
Between the gaps in the real
And what finds itself from what
Came before in experience and words.

Love Mary x

Hello swans with your brown signets
On the near edges where the weeds blend
And the green meets the trusted stoney bed
You frighten a little with those huge wings
The strength to **** if fear struck an orange eye.

The ducks and drakes trailing fluffy ducklings
As they swim back to the safety of the reed bed.


Love Mary

Where did it come from that perpetual silence,
Hanging in the air becoming thought,
The birds knew it before the dawn calling,
And embracing lovers touched by a first kiss,
Perhaps in the waiting there are moments

Love Maryx

At weekends in mid-August if the weather sunny
A girl dresses in bright fluorescent pink socks
The sort sold three in a pack at the local market
Puts on her best T- bar white shoes and is ready.

A family outing which included a younger brother;
And a bundle of toys, cricket bat and picnic bags
The train went from Tooting Bec to Mordon station
And from there a tiring walk was undertaken.

Delightful it was with the cow- parsley and crickets
Red Admiral butterflies and leaf blossom on the trees
The siblings, only eighteen months apart, thought
They could barely wait to arrive at their special spot.

And so they did, well before one o’clock, in high spirits
Racing the river as it flowed hidden behind iron railings
Nettles in the tall grass and air scented meadow- sweet
To the trunk improvised seat by The Wandle .

Love Mary x
'

Sometimes we never know a person
Who filled our lives without a breath
Yet made a heart leap
And a mind yearn.

In sepia and postcard size
A professional portrait
Backed on thin card
In a blue album she sat.

Elphin faced just more than thirty
A baby in Christening gown,
Sleepy eyed, stretched across her knee
The family Moonstone upon her chest.

Opal, oval semi precious stone
Set in golden filigree leaf
Falling from a fine nine carat chain
As my mother looked up to smile.

Love Mary ***