You know when you meet someone and they fit perfectly into your life and you just want to keep them forever.
There are few of these people like that. That will accept you, that have your sense of humor, that don’t care if you’re having a bad hair day, or year.
They make you smile, laugh, cheer you up when you feel like nothing can.
They accept you unconditionally and are the first to laugh at you when you do something stupid.
And you never appreciate them until they have drifted off into their own lives.

But I want to appreciate them now.
They keep me going when I feel like I can’t anymore.
They are my sanity in the insanity of the world.
People who don’t even know how valuable they are.

breakfast with my mother
is now a song of
tapping,clinking noise
as the tremor in her hands
grow beyond the medications
control

she will be 85 within month
and has become small and birdlike in appetite

conversations have become
vocal exercises in loud short
projections
but she is not deaf
the world has just stopped
speaking clearly

her eyes
have seen so much,
her heart
has encompassed both
great joys
and deep sorrows

the sharp cutting edges of
her mind
are now becoming
butter knifes
it saddens me to know
her mental acuity
is dwindling like yarn
unraveling
to pool in a
muddled mess
of colour on
the dusty floor

i watch her
over my coffee cup
we are so
different and disparate
i once truly believed
my self
to be anothers child
our personalities
were so divided by lifes spectrum
but as i muse now
as a mother myself
watching her
it comes to me
if i am just an inkling
of her strength and grace
then i am an amazon
incarnate
incarnate

the walker, bends,
her lycra-clad hips,
to check her addidas laces.

she has walked,
many, many miles
in this life.
all, in the pursuit,
of the, body beautiful.

and now, has the
musculsture,
of an aged chicken.
all string and rope,
under sagging skin.

she breathes deeply,
sips, from a metalic bottle
and begins,
the downward journey,
into the unenviable,
inevitablity of ageing.

she smiles and
gives me a cheery wave,
as she passes on by.

She sits at her desk,
takes up her pen and the ink begins to flow.
Each word carefully chosen,  each word so
carefully placed.
we watch in stunned silence as the poetry takes shape.
How many of us could pen such a literary work of art?
How many would sit and ponder and
not know where to start....

they're going to trample on you, my darling.
they're going to tell you to be the perfect girl
they're going to prune you until your cheekbones are on a level of their own and your hair is as sleek as that of the girl before you.

smile for the camera, darling!

don't show your teeth
you don't want to look like a horse, do you?
cross your legs
you are a lady and must behave like one.

pluck.
wax.
shine.
buff.

don't let them trample on you, my darling.
don't let them convince you that you are stardust and moonshine and will crumble away with a single touch.

you are strong.
you are the sun.
and you will shine.

you are loved beyond worth
you are treasured beyond measure