So many have I watched
Falling, dripping, rolling
From the clouds to earth.
Catching in my mouth
The taste of dust.
Trickling between cloth and skin,
The groove in my chest.
And the splashes fill the puddles
At my feet where I stand
I'll be a single drop of rain
In the palm of your hand.

Love Mary **

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
So linger daring the hands of bread and biscuits
A continuity of return until fat and bloated, stop.
Their tail feathers sharing a twitching line march
As they swim back to the safety of the reed beds.

Love Mary

You soldier and civilian
Rememembered with red and white
Poppies
We today commence this
Remembrance Sunday
Proud still of our nation
Who seeks to save
Who lost so many
In the bombs and the blitz.

May we learn in these hours
What sacrifice means
What love is and trust
And seek that this world
Endeth not in tatters.

Love Mary ***

Forgive me soldier, I never knew
How your life was wasted in such
Tragic tears
Your youth by the roadside just slipped away
Your beauty went with you
Your poetry too.

Born to be famous with beautiful
Words
Layed out in notebooks and on
Paper scrolls.
Never married, no children born
But I have your poetry in my drawer.

Love Mary

Read a passage by Herman Hesse
Who wrote about trees and what they meant to he.
Got me thinking about our Park
And the two trees that were never apart,
One was tall the other smaller and rounder,
They lived together in a binary state.

The Summers came and went until in Winter
One looked bent,
Slowly after melting snow the leaves began
Not to show,
The smaller tree, for it was a she,
Got cut down leaving only he.

Now in the park and proud
The tall tree has his hour
Although a singular frame
The patch of earth still remains
On which he cherished his love
The best companion he ever had.

At twilight when the light is low
He hears the rustling of her leaves
And sways a little to and fro
Just to let her know.


For my dear Roger , love Mary xxxx

In May the tree has liliaceous buds
And places at the tips a flower
With fluted candelabra frills
To light the wake time evening hours
A touch so close to kiss the sky
And violet bright against the blue.

Love Mary **

See branch oh cherry blossom ripe
Below Payne’s haunted sky of grey
In mornings rain dripped clouds on high
The pink now wetted held to bough.

Love Mary x

The dragonflies and meadow-sweet
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 river’s 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
The River Wandle is the largest river of the south southwest sector of London, England. Its name is thought to derive from the community around its mouth, Wandsworth. About 9 miles long, it passes through the London Boroughs of Croydon, Sutton, Merton, and Wandsworth to join the River Thames on the Tideway..
Mouth: River Thamesnn

I laid them on the old brick wall
Those many coloured hollyhocks
Their heads now cracked and open
Their stems brown and dried.

And as they pass, the friends of mine,
Gather in their gardener’s hands
What next year will begin to grow
The following year stand tall.

Love Mary ***

The days always had Red Robin and Cyril
And us two sitting on the cold back step
You ninety - four and me in my late forties
Red Robin came forward, hop, hop, hop
And took the cheddar from you old man.

Days of simplicity when the bluetits nested
And the birdtable was filled with seeds daily
Your strong hands, tapped up the peanut tin
Your son shaved the stubble on a rough chin
This quietness was rewarded by many birds.

Love Mary ***