The snow has buried
Yesterday's promise and shoots of spring
Nature's beautiful cruelty
Can only delay the inevitable rebirth
Which will activate the soil
And paint this piece of world once more
With bright living colours
And the chance to hope

                                        By Phil Roberts

There is no greater spectacle
As two teams ready for battle
For club or province or country
In the great game we call Rugby.

A game of defence and attack
One against one, pack against pack,
Punishing scrums, hard tackling,
Great kicking and ball handling.

No quarter given nor expect
All play with mutual respect
Though each team give their all to win
All play with such great discipline.

Each player there for the other
All supporting one another
Each combining to make the whole
Working towards a common goal.

Players give it all on the day
Leave nothing on the field of play.
A game full of heart and passion.....
And valuable life lessons.

After the rain, I see the daisies,
In their clean, white dresses,
Fresh and perfect.
Washed and bright,
Their faces lifted to the skies,
And open to the sun.

Is it their youth that makes them so fearless,
Despite their diminutive size?
A naivety of spirit or
Lack of worldly knowledge?
Or do their fleeting, precarious lives
Lead them to so embrace the now?

No, their beauty springs from a truth far older,
For they are neither flashy nor flamboyant.
A daisy knows no subterfuge,
Has no jealousies, no conceit.
Its wisdom lies deeper,
And it bends with the wind.

To value the time that we have,
To see beauty in the smallest places,
And to love without fear,
Is a talent easily lost,
And the line between happy and sad is drawn
With a thin pencil and a light touch.

In miniature perfection,
A daisy lives fully,
Its face in the sunlight.
It lives, and that is enough.

Vicki Watson © 2014

No one comes here
A Barron place
Where bombs have been dropped
Words spread on paper like the blood spread across our conscience
Many battles have been faught and won here
Many man has come and gone
More gone than survived
I miss them all
Friends I thought were but candles flickering
Too tender
Too hurt and fragmented
Just visiting to vent or create
Or to connect with themselves through others
I step carefully through the rumble
There are too many ghosts
Wandering lonely
About these walls