A single tree against a blue sky
A single tree
That is Me.


Love Mary ***

We jumped in feet first
Slightly unbalancing the craft
Red it was, a catamaran with
Those pedals and oars, difficult
To steer.
My pink pinafore got splashed
And dad's beautiful face laughed
The pleasure of being a child,
Ruddy cheeks, generous mouth.
It was just me and him,
A boat for two, as we spun
Round and round trying to get
Started in a direction.

Out in the shallow sea we bobbed along
Only had half-an-hour before call in.
Our feet got wet in our shoes
And we smiled and smiled
I loved my dad that day
In his stripped top.

Love Mary x

Bonfire Night .

Under night sky its navy soot
Circular spirals of movement
We children watched
As dad opened the box
Mum gave out chestnuts
And humbugs
In our long back garden.

A match took off
Sending shivering sparkles
Upwards in coloured lights
Then the falling to earth
To dissolve
Melting into the cosmos
As sugar in a glass.

Cocoa in a mug
Surrounded by love
This was a best day
Of my life.


Love Mary ***

We never matched it together
But your waves were curly and grey
I flowed with golden heirlooms
******* in bunches that day
And we walked so slowly the road
Where we lived
The home that you made me
Was ever so good
Full of the love
Any child could need
Oh Mummy I miss
Your sweet perfume .

Love Mary **

There is always a place and a time
To get back to
If only one could!
Where events, altered
One could have survived;
Chance conversations,
A casually read book,
Movements of oceans,
Chips in ones head,
A desire to be kissed,
A contemporary remake,
Lead to a disaster
At a later date.

Caught by one's Achille's heel
In a thicket full of trees
Climbing on a swan's back
In the middle of a breeze
Standing forever in that
Potential spot
Left open for a second
A dreadful plot.

Casting a fishing net into a pool
Searching for items thrown away
Too soon.
And I wonder if a bird's song
In a nearby tree
Could have brought me
Freedom and let me be.

Love Mary **

And perhaps only childhood
Nailed me to the cross
Standing in the brilliance
Believing what was good.

Now thoughts just embers
Ashes fallen flames
And bend to sweep the dust
Of those promises broken again.

Love Mary x

Let me take you from your bed
Kiss you gently on the head
Heap you to my willing breast
Fold you in loves tenderness
Though the night may still be dark
The house is cold with no fire
I never minded feeding you
Being woken all night through
In my nightgown I stood by
Watched the clock move the hour
Longed to have us skin to skin
Your baby hair and dribbly chin.


Love Mummy **

Small one, did you catch the ‘hello’ running
Between the Sycamore trees
And catch a winged seed head
As it floated down to breathe.

For the table is laid for supper
Garnished with all you gave
And I will catch you running
Running on quite brave.

Love Mary ***

Falling plums.

I would sit for hours
Squelching the stones to
A deepness.
The birds had taken their chew
Yellow beaked blood stained .
It was difficult finding a clearing
To be comfortable.

I disliked the plum falling season.
The paving stones dirtied.
No one collected them
Always too few
Yet I remember the word Damson
In a labelled jam jar
Stiff and sticky on a larder shelf.

Love Mary Kearns

The words were deviously writ
With good hid well behind the line
And faithfully did fly the woods
To run the gauntlet and despise.

Love Mary x

I remember the death of my grandfather
My head filled out the spoken words
There a man stretched out, sublime,
In an upstairs bedroom room,
Unable to breath, doctor called,
His family standing at his side.
This was 1957, I was five.
My father had gone to be with
A father he both loved
And feared, felt tenderness for
and pitied.

I stayed with my mother,
Saying "just because
I do not cry Mummy does not mean
I am not sad."
With my small child's hands
I made her a cup of tea.

Grandfather was a rough, tough
Man,
Always impeccably dressed
In white shirt and a tie,
He threw his dinners at the wall
Collected greyhounds
And raced them at the White City
They all died, all six.
Gave me a shiny half- crown piece
At every visit and a razored kiss,
He was a lamplighter, fifty- six.

I loved him
In a child's simple way
Knew his heart loved
But life was tough.
My father spoke kindly of him
"Poor burger" my grandfather said
When my father took on a mortgage.
Poor ******.

Love Mary x

Looking lovingly at a painting by Constable
With a slow moving stream in the foreground
And a man about to get into a boat,
Salisbury Cathedral in the background
Its magnificent spire rising to meet the sky.

In a hundred years will these monuments
To religion, power, weath still stand stately
Against the incoming tide of the new world
To transmit a meaning?
And if we be spiritual beings where can we fly?

Can we be welcomed, cared for, listened to
In a world lost in fiscal concerns, selfish, predatory.
And a chair to bear our burdens in the quietness
Of an afternoon light,
Carried by the sun through stainglass.

Or on a hillside be humbled by a simple cross
A clunp of earth filled with flowers.
Let us think why and what it is we need
So that those churches owned by power
Wealth and history become owned by us all.

Love Mary ***

Far out a small seabird called
Across the peaks and troughs
It was lost, laying out timely
Memories in its mind
Ones to carry carefully
In the dark night.
Beruffled and brave no longer
In the the harsh storm
Trailing its tail feathers
In an attempt to reach
The bliss of oblivion
And curl up forever.

Love Mary ***

My children, four children
Always little children
Be happy children
Under the Autumn sky
Mummy says goodbye.

Love Mary xxxx

A ball of prickles sheared close
A sculpture in a park
Yellow segmented flower
With opening bud
A harsh world as
Hard as any prickle
A phone call to a newspaper
Editor
A cry for help
Lies in the light
Organisation
No trust
May this world
Treat you all
Much better
Stars in the night.

Love Mary ***

You expect a caress when together
But too shy her nearness frightened
So arms held straight to girl’s side
Both stiff and awkward in company
The mother-in-law looked at camera
And the girl faced the grassy lawn
She remembered this action years on
And regretted how youth falls short
Of love in embarrassment and desire.

Love Mary x

A little boy read me his story
Written slowly and with thought
Listening inside his head
As the words he learnt to talk,
Saw his head intently bent
Earnest to get the right  scent,
Stopped here and there
Could he hear a cat's purr?
So the story became about
Two cats in a scary house
A nasty character masquerading
And spooky ghosties
Going through the ceiling.

Thank you Monty for your inspiration.
Glad you want to be a writer..

Love Grandma ***

It was Sunday, Mum away
The weekend holiday
Choosing ‘a no added sugar dress’
With its diagonal stripes
Break dancing like joins
A symbol of 60s voguing.

Evelyn down loads a drawing programme
On her IPad and
begins to inhabit
The kitchen table
With colourful trolls
Florence her sister is two and a half
With a head full of curls and twirly skirt
Herself two and half years older.

Love Grandma Mary

Oh mother I remember you creeping
So quietly in your quiet slippers
On Christmas evening so late
After the street lights had gone out
Up to our bedrooms.

And holding red crepe bound net
Stockings filled with all that you had
Place these one at the foot of my bed
And one at the foot of my brother’s
Each one filled with a tangerine:-

A pink or white sugar mouse with
String tail and red sugar piped eyes,
Chocolate money, rubber end pencil,
A cardboard card of four tiny plastic
Baby dolls with stuck on dresses;

And a few other treasures to surprise;
A tinsel bauble, ribbons and slides,
A toy whistle and a silver crown;
My mother’s purse was never full
But her heart was and so loved.

Love Mary xxxx

To  Daffodills

Faire Daffodills, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early - rising Sun
Has not attain'd his noone.
            Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
                   Has run
But to the even- song:
And, having pray'd together,we
Will goe with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a Spring;
As quick a growth to meet Decay,
As you or any thing.
       We die
As your hours do and drie
                       Away,
Like to the Summers raine,
Or as the pearles of morning dew
Ne'r to be found againe.

By Robert Herrick (1591-1674

Love from Mary XXXX

The first daisy was your first flower
As if you knew not its name but its power
Caressing fingers found as the sun shone .

Love Mary
Grandma

I’m going to be a diamond
Encrusted in gold
A piece of costume jewellery
Bought cheaply on the bold
It won’t be worth anything
But to hold a pretty wrap

Life follows this pattern
Dangling treasures in our wake
That afterwards mean nothing
But hold our namesake

A piece of broken glass
Glinting in the sun
The skeleton of a leaf
Unnoticed by some
Many a pretty thing
Lasts longer in our dreams.

Love Mary ***

I dressed  you daughter in smock cloth
It sewn with mother’s loving touch
A blue check white embroidered dots
And buttons, sashed will fasten back.

Along the line of shops at the bottom
Was a sweettie shop
Sunday afternoon and father fetched out sixpence
Whilst he watched the television sport
‘Go down to Martins and get a bag of chewy nuts,
Sherbet spinning discs and liquorice laces’
Put on my shoes and flew
There and back in a flash
Brother, dad, mum and I
Sat, ******, munched
Glued to the black
And white set.

Love Mary ***
.

Float me Abraham in my country’s fields
Where the white mice come forth in shields
And bargain with the great provider that
We may cup the day of peace without harm.

For in the time of sanctities the cloak glows
And we look to freedom in those fields.

Love Mary ***

Truth

Autumn and her berries come

Bringing warmth oh fire crave

Embers to the summer gone

A vision life takes
Mortals look for free

Tomorrow green on green we see

Not a dream
TRUTH

Everyday we separate from sheds of skin
The crack in the drainpipe gets wider
The moon changes position
The rain is borrowed damp
And I depart from the first place
I ever knew,
You .


Love Mary x
For my Rog love Mary

Bought from Clements on a cold afternoon
A coachbuilt navy Silvercross pram
For my third and beautiful little lamb
And when she was born at six pounds thirteen
I wrapped her tight and placed her inside
She had long black hair brushed in a peak
And more lovelier a sight could not be reached
And destiny played out its days and more lovelier
She became each day and now at forty- four
Has four to love and tender and put in seats of cars
Not gigantic coachbuilt stars.

Love Mummy ***

Down in the field where the dandelions grow
I took off my knickers and away did flow
Up on the hillside with a swish of my hat
Caught Cabbage White butterflies doing that.

Love Mary x

Wide lapels and herringbone
Was what my parents wore
A few years following
My brother and I were born,
Married in a registry office
My Aunty and mother in hats
No flowery additions
Their love was that.

In my father's pocket
A folded handkerchief
Mother held a handbag
An umbrella just in case.

I never got to try it on
That grey suit of my mum's
Lived in the few photographs
After they were gone
The bungalow was sold
My brother took the suits
And dispensed of their souls.


In remembrance of my dearest parents.
Love Mary their daughter ***

I am spread out in my green dress
With the buttons updone
And listening to the music
That you played for my song
It is evening and wherever I be
You're all with me
My dear poets
I'm glad I found thee.

Love to my poet friends Mary ***

I have to travel in my head
Travel when tucked in bed
Around the country’s edge
Remembering all my friends.

Love Mary x

A little girl sang to me today
Sweetly and with care
She knows everything
About kindness
For that she has been shown.
That love nourishes the world
And is an armour against evil
Dear child stay bright
Displaying a gladness
And truth for ever
Love you Evelyn.

Grandma Mary ***

My heart grows in gardens
Spread out the land
Roses magnificient
Some climbing some stand
The roses are David Austin
Cupped shaped layers of flounce
To touch they do drop
Becoming sailing craft.
The gardens are my home
Petals covering the ground
And my heart lives there
Foverver grateful for a hand.


Love Mary  xxxx

BY EDWARD THOMAS

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.


Such an incredible poem by this young soldier
Who died in FWW.

Second daughter you were so kind
When your baby sister was around
How can I capture thee
No words are lovely enough to be.

Love Mummy x

A lane that connected two extreme differences
One a shabby, littered covered entrance
Where scraps of rope doodled round lampposts
And trolley carts became abandoned aliens
With twirly wheels from mechano sets.
The smell of discarded waste and ash
Made one hurry forth pushing bicycles
Starting the downhill roll leading to Lyles Lane


Covered in a green canopy of trees
The air fleeing past as we gathered speed
Up the steeps and along the flats
Feeling the freedom of escapism
The lane joined the outskirts of the town
With the sublimity of the countryside.
Pedalling on six bicycles.


Love Mary

Buttercups and Daisies
Now polluted flowers
Coming in the Springtime
In concrete made towers
While the trees are leafless
Now diseased and bare
Buttercups and Daisies
Don’t come up much here.

Love Mary x

The first crimson rosebud appeared
In a garden made out of lovedreams
Given and built from deep intuition
Watched each day for the new growth.

Love Mary

‘Speak to me ‘,
I couldn’t it cost too much
Energy evaporated
Leaving tangled webs
Of fibrotic nerves exposed.

The traveller lost all impulse
The temperature dropped
And what was given
Could not be returned
So I cannot speak to you.

Love Mary x

I greet your tenderest hands as one
Then time had beated out your name
And so with heart my hands did know
Two rings of gold this day behold.


Love Mary xxxx

There were days of continual wetness
When the beach huts
Suffocated
Limiting pleasure
To mealtimes
And quick dashes to the
Sea.
Ice creams stayed frozen
In their wrappers
And craneflies buzzed
In the corner
Making the humidity
Irritated
After a fortnight
We were glad to go home
Next year was a long way off.

Love Mary x

White Syringa’s fragrance gently sweet
A cup of tea and painted orange bench
With Fluff, a tabby cat, your gardening shoes
Stay longer, mother mine, how I love you.

Love Mary

He slept till eleven a quiet new babe
A sister and brother to love and enfold
A dream of wonder, a wonder of surprise
A poem to open a person to know.

Love Mary

Christmas lights by Pickwicks
A variety pack of colours
With dancer’s skirts
Frilled edges, sharp.

Loose bulbs, unstable filaments
Twisted black flex
Two spare bulbs
And a flasher.

On and off, off and on
Different sequences
Alternative time durations
Reflecting our life story.

Love Mary ***

Forty years felt this land
Green
But how the  carrions caress
Its shores, pollution stains
In all the halls
Where hang the priveledged
Like bats in the light.
Without vision or right.

With cupped hands the meak
Hold out the remains of the
Saint's words, crying why?
And the challis falls until
Failing retribution they, too,
Break hour for the truth
For carelessness is unbearable
Sorrow.

Love Mary x

Separated from the outside,
The world of masculinity
And paid labour
The mother and child
Seemingly secure.
Only the sky, glimpsed between
Overhanging branches, lights
This secluded kitchen plot
Where vegetables are washed
And the broom sweeps clean
The tiled yard.
The space between diagonals
Creates triangles of intimacy
Here the little Dutch girl
Looks tenderly upwards
At the female figure
In white apron and cap.
The foreground is reversed
For this activity is a hidden
Place
Where the warmth of yellow
Echoes the harmony
Of a domestic idyll.


Love Mary ***

Went to stay in London when I was but a child
Stayed with my Aunty Betty always a bit wild
Put me in a bedroom that smelt of soap and lace
Decorated in liliac, that was the latest taste.
Sat in the front room overlooking the street
Books on the painters displayed very neat
Listened to the classics,  music I'd never heard
Sipped percolated coffee, never said a word.

By the grand piano a table of pretty shells
A collection from holidays in Corsica and Wales
Where there was a fireplace stood a new gas fire
Above it a reprint of Van Gogh's sunflowers
Lunch in the kitchen with a room filled with light
Yellow painted walls to keep everything bright
Plastic chairs from Heels the strings made a ridge
Susie Cooper tea cups soup with crusty bread.

Salad in a basket black pepper to add
Ice cream for pudding I was really glad
Ate all my dinner then to the garden went
Under the Willow together on a creeky bench
Wondered round the garden, listened to church bells
Thought this an unusual life no children to tell
I loved my Aunty Betty the stories she would spell
Of places on Greek Islands, her boyfriend as well.

John was a teacher, literature of course
He wrote lengthy poems and took photographs
They went to the theatre the ballet and special films
They lived not together but an hours dream
John in the country Betty in the town
Was simply perfect for them to get around
I looked at all her photos when Betty was young
The ones with her sister who also was my mum.
Although they were different alike in many ways
They both chose the sweet life but felt the other's sway
My mother had two children with little money to spare
Betty had not got any so that made her rare.

They both died at eighty their influence great
Thank you Grace and Betty you both have your place.


Love Mary daughter and niece **

You play so lightly pretty maid
If I touch you, what would you say
So near, I hear a heart beat
Feel your breathing on my face.

And the sunlight caresses your sleeve
At this beauty I barely breathe
My fingers creep towards yours
And you ignore me and do play.

I can feel you lift those fingers
Oh so slowly on the keys
And I want you there to need me
But you stare straight in front.

Now I am earnest in this warm light
And your black pinafore falls as a dove
Oh so soft is the velvet covering
Curled around you gentle love.


Yet do you not hear me in this stillness
Where the words go unsaid
Is the music your only love dear?
For my passion is outsaid.

On the blue chair I will sit you
Press open your knees
Find my fingers in your underskirts
Rub you tenderly with my sheath.

Yet you keep playing in the sunlight
While I hold deep my breath
And my panting is becoming audible
As I look at your *******.

Yet I fear this is useless as my ardour is strong
But for you pretty lady my love appears wrong.



Love Maryxx

My mother sat by her father's bed
As he took his last breath
It had taken all day
He had listened to the news at one
Then slowly gone down hill.

They called the local doctor
To give some relief
But he was out on a house call
Attending another ones grief
So hand in hand he left this land.

After the funeral at the top of the hill
In Christchurch graveyard
He was laid to rest, this being his will.
My mother, a person of wisdom and myth
Rang me each day to tell of her progress.

Before he left, her father had said
That if he could he would try
To let her know he had arrived
So everyday whilst on her walks
She looked for a sign that talked.

And then one day after quite a while
Found a lamppost and near the ground
Were written the words ,"I  am".
And this was enough to put her trust
In a life ever after and a father she loved.

Love Mary **