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136 · May 2018
Church hall.
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
The hall made for singing on Sundays
Filled with pink leggings and tutu skirts
And an old piano in the corner
Watching a flurry of signets point.

Late to start, us being poor, but anyway
You wanted to try and both were good
I wanted a ballerina in the family
And the hour passed fast and costly.

When one of you, after university, took up
A position at Sadlers Wells in the offices,
You got cheap tickets and we all went
At Christmas, sitting in the stalls, aglow.

Love Mary x
136 · Feb 2018
A presence
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Lady do you still sit in that leather chair
Where dreams are held
On paper screens
Did you know how often
Conversation turned
To that necklace
Below your face
And the downey baby
Called Grace.
On rainy days
Taken from a drawer
We saw a glimpse of
The yesterday
We never had.

Love Mary

about
135 · Feb 2018
Harriet and Hastings
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Harriet and Hastings and two red robins
Arrived  one morning, unexpectedly,
In an Amazon cardboard box;
Tapping and pecking and scratching
They got out from all that cardboard
With a hop, skip and a jump.

It had been decided, by others, that
Their home would be near a lovely
Old Flowing Plum tree
Nestled between pink Cranesbill
And a variegated **** with mauve,
Candle flowers, in Summer.

Now in this garden lots of other folks
Lived sharing a small plot of land
Filled with shrubs and evergreens
Which included two Camellias, one red,
And one white, a climbing clematis,
******* with string, and Winter aconites.

Hustling for their patch was Danny duckling,
Samantha snail, Flippity frog, Tweeny owls,
Penelope pigeon, Woolly sheep and a few others
Often hibernating, sporadically, or out for the day.
So the new comers slowly got to know all
The inhabitants of 16 The Gardens, Watford.


Love Mary xxxxx
For Evelyn and Florence and their mum and dad xxxx
135 · Apr 2018
The Fool
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
A painting, an orchestration
A trembling anxiety, enhanced
By chance.
No trace of description
A ratio in space
Flat on a surface
Embedded in spool
A mood outstanding
The sobbing of a fool.

Love Mary x
Each colour caresses it's neighbour
135 · Jun 2018
Many a pretty thing.
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
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 ***
135 · Mar 2018
Edges of goodbye
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Where when close to the wall
The edges of your hair
Almost touch an upturned face
Filling just the slightest trace
As if not a whisper was shared
Nor a flutter undisturbed
For the note is quietly played
And Schubert's subtle sigh,
Goodbye.

Love Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
Marie Thérèse Walter, an imaginative tale.

Marie Thérèse lifted up her golden hair
And placed a clip on the left to hold back a fringe.
She came through the city of Paris, in the hot sunshine wearing simple sandals
And a Summer dress.
           --------------------------
At the door of her lover's house she paused,
Wondering wistfully how he would greet her.
Would she find him laden with canvas
Impatient for her love or her pose.
He was an artist, fabulously famous,
Married, with son, to a noble woman.
She was his mistress at seventeen.
The thing from which he drew inspiration.
That moved her to tears.
                ------------------------
On a street in Paris whilst shopping,
Browsing the Galleries Lafayette,
They had met by chance in an instance,
Her face attacking his skin.
Tall, athletic and graceful,
A beauty with Grecian profile,
Fascinated, he was, by her movement,
The space between her eyes.

Unhindered by his pronouncement,
She offered to model there in;
And so began the beginning,
Of changes,
That altered art from within.
             ----------------------------
The price of art is expensive,
Its development claims many lives,
For Marie Therese it was lonely,
After Picasso said goodbye.
She lived with their daughter,
Maya, born out of love,
But ten years of giving,
Only made her sad.
After he died,
She knew, her time had come.
Knowing the world was empty
With his power gone.

Love Mary xxxx
135 · Jan 2019
Emotion.
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
Very naturally one believes that it is reason
Not emotion that rules the world.
But the truth is it is emotion
That spins ones days
Catapults one out of complacency
To produce and act in
Extraordinary ways.

Love Mary **
135 · May 2018
Childhood accidents
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
Falling, slowly, effortlessly
Like a floating feather
Without wings, watching
Space interrupt
No hands to heed the
Speed
No one came to me
With ****** chin
Lifted soul
And ran
Finding the door ajar.
135 · Apr 2019
Farewell
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2019
No longer do I walk on the quiet land
Or watch the tree buds on Spring days
For I am lost to those things forever so
And am star dust to the earthly soul.

Love Mary xxxxx
135 · Mar 2018
When you find a rainbow
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Pushing through the bushes
Four small heads
Tasting the rainwater
Dripping down their face
Step into a meadow
Filled with hay and grass
Long legged poppies
And tall buttercups
Flies in the air
Misty, cobweb trace
Come into the bright light
From this covered place;
Glistening in the sunshine
An arc across the sky
So gloriously brilliant
A rainbow for our eyes.
Standing together
In reverance for this sight
Only seen occasionally
When the weather's right.


Love Mary xxxx
134 · Mar 2018
Quiet evening
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
In the quiet of the evening she plays to him
As the light slips into mellowness
Creating that peace before dark
He loves to listen as she rocks him
Wraping him in the beauty of her world.

Her fingers take up this time of day
Filling the room with lost emotions
Embracing, as she does, his tempo
This union of friendship which is theirs
Held together by bars of notes in a room.


Love Mary ***
After Vermeer The Music Lesson
134 · Feb 2018
Scarlet
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Under Scarlet lay
A letter written on a special day
Written by a loving father
To the mother she once had.
Every night she dreamed a dream
About a lady on a movie screen
With a teardrop in her eye
Waving softly a sad goodbye.

For beautiful Tasha who died at 30
A day after Scarlet's birth.
Love Mary
134 · Nov 2019
Lilies
Mary Gay Kearns Nov 2019
Will you wait by the lilies side
In your flowery shirt
Wait for me by the church
In the country road, casually,
And carry me home at last
Never, longer to be alone.

Love Mary xxxx
134 · Apr 2018
wild boy.
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Down the lane under the trees
Reaching the latch first, lifted it carefully and quietly
Not to disturb the reverie of the place.
But he and it was always a he
Came barking and bouncing, full pace, to see who intruded there.
No bigger then a foot high, like a bundle of curled white wire
He protestested.
Waiting for a retreat, seduced by his water bowl
Finally peace was restored.
Some days he was out on his walks.
Then the garden lit up without fire.
And we two children were the ones running wild.

Love Mary x
134 · Apr 2018
Poster
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Open university  'Civilisations' poster is free on
0300 303 5303

Love Mary x
134 · May 2018
He painted my pots
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
A little white *** grew a blue smile
It sat on the shelf
Thinking for a while
Opened popped two blue eyes
With a bewildered frown
And inside a figure moving around.

So the painter propped him up against a wall
Deciding on position, balancing it all.
After many years sitting with him
Watching the paint brushes
Applying thin
The artist put down his brush.
Just sat and looked at Little ***.


Eventually the painting got sold
Found itself in an Art show.
A lady bought him to put on her wall
Did *** feel happy, I’m not sure.
He liked his owner who made him
So sad and small.

Love to Little *** .

From Mary **
133 · Apr 2018
Crossing the water
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Oh tides you carry out your friends
From mooring safe into the night
Slipping between the row of buoys
Under the moonlight night.
Though it is late and time short
The stars are shining bright
And do not fear the open sea
Where Gandalf did take flight.

On the shore they stepped so light
Their gowns a feathered grey
And waved and waved as they depart
For the Havens far away.
So silently they cross the bar
As Tennyson spoke of too
To raise the currents in their wake
And slip slowly out of view.

Love Mary **
133 · Apr 2018
Katharine
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Running fingers through nutmeg hair
You claimed the silky tree bark
Black ribbons in a sea of leaves
And a brown checked school dress.

Love Mummy x
133 · Mar 2018
Camellias
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Brightest of the Spring blossoms
That in front of my window fill
These days with cascades of rosettes
On leaves like satin silk
And if I had within my strength
I would polish each and every one
So a mirror might be cast
Reflecting the noon day sun.
My Rose Red and Snow White
Bear out friendship's time
Sharing together what weather's blow
From raindrops to icey winds
And as April does appear
You once more turn to green
I look forward to the new shoots
Awaiting to be seen.


Love Mary x
132 · Jun 2018
Everything
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
Everything just becomes things
Things to put on the shelf
Things to put in the shed
Things to take to bed
Pictures on your wall
Mats on the floor
Clothes in the cupboard
Jewellery boxes to store
When what we need is
None of these
But to be loved
And adored.
That’s all
But costs more
Than Everything.

Love Mary **
132 · Apr 2019
Cabled.
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2019
She gathered her gloves from top bookcase
Those fingerless ones knitted by a friend in
Grey and blue, slidding them along the rail
To keep her hands clean and warm, cabled.

Love Mary ***
Thank you Jackie Carrier
132 · Mar 2018
Sometimes in the city
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Where the birds never sing
You come across secrets
That you've never seen
And this is what I say
And doubt not my words
But finding you all
Brought joy into this world
You come from every race
And touch every space
Have wisdom in your bones
So I am never alone
Sometimes in the city.

Love Mary **
131 · Jan 2019
Silver tips.
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
Silver she was that tiny star
Far up in the heavens
Silver tips upon her shoes
And brighter by far
Through all the hours
A night-light in the blue.

Love Mary ***
131 · Jun 2018
The abyss of the birds’
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
Let’s go high up as black dotted wings
Tempering the wind in search of home
Where no longer there is day and night
And together we float in the silver light.

Days of sorrow vanish in sunshine’s haze
The white cliffs throwing us their spray
In a goodbye gesture where the waves stay
And we’re leaving, out above the ocean today.

Love Mary x
131 · Feb 2018
Thank You Dad
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
It was hard telling him
Breaking the peace that was his world
If only it could be not this
But some other story
There was no choice
So with courage
She found the comfort of his lap
And with his love
He held his pregnant daughter.


Love to my dad from Mary **
131 · Jun 2018
Let’s Play
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
Let’s play dear brother
As we never did before
But with an understanding
Together once more.

Out in the garden
Climbing the trees
Drawing and painting
Just you and me .

Love Mary x
131 · Jun 2018
The little bubble girl.
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
The little bubble girl
Sat on the kerb
With her clay pipe
And took a breath
Deep in her chest
And blew
And blew
And blew.


And across the sky
The bubbles fly
Bright dancing globes
Reflecting light
A lovely sight
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye.

Love Mary x
131 · May 2018
Stock Phrases
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
‘What shall I tell them?’
Asks a junior doctor.
‘Consultant ‘,
‘Old age’.
Can we accept this
Simplisticity?
Lying has become
Medical heaven.


Love Maryx
131 · Apr 2018
little mummy
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
I think of you little mummy
When the snow gathers round your gravestone
Creeping up the sides of the white marble
Touching the words with its soft hands
Covering the overturned urn
As the last flowers lay like a fan
Uniting you and daddy
Under the lightest eiderdown.

Love Mary your daughter .
Christchurch Totland with the lamb sculpture on the front wall.
131 · Feb 2018
The Hollyhocks
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
I've been watching the hollyhocks for years
The tall stemmed, open petalled, plants
Colourful Mid-Summer blooms
Collected the seedheads
For others to spread
Across county and country;
Biennials so will take two years to perfect
By then my Autumn will be long gone
Leaving the bees to carry my scent
And the flowers to speak
Of a life well spent.


Love Mary
130 · Jan 2018
Taking the green walk.
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
Taking the green walk.

Which ever way you approach
This tunnel of green,
Whether from Yarmouth
And the incoming ferry,
Or nearer the Totland end
The experience was much the same.

Underfoot a mossy path,
Dampened by overhanging trees,
Deep puddles to navigate
And the stinging of nettles
In the bracken filled undergrowth;
Adjacent fields where bulls
Occasionally got out of hand,
Charging sporadically and scaring
The birds.

This route was both our outward
And homewards journey,
Taken on family picnics
To Fort Victoria,
A viaduct of small arcades,
With photographs
Of seafaring men lining walls,
And a cafeteria,
Selling limited produce.

Trips to Yarmouth to shop,
Collecting momentoes
And sticks of peppermint rock,
Allowed for the green walk,
Back to the coziness of a chalet.
We use to sing as we walked
The three miles or so,
I looking for blackberries
To take home for tea.

The only difference of route,
Was that of expectation,
The early day high spirits,
Fresh from sleep,
Looking forward to sandwiches
And perhaps an ice cream.
Returning was more arduous,
Tired feet and lagging behind,
The green road seemed longer,
And the holiday
Another day shorter.

Love Mary **
A walk on the Isle of Wight
130 · Jul 2018
Pictures on my walls.
Mary Gay Kearns Jul 2018
I have pictures on my walls
Pretty pictures one and all
Painted by friends I know
People who love and grow.

Everyday I look at them
Treasure the heart within
Gives me a life to breathe
Pretty pictures for to see.

Love Mary x
130 · Dec 2019
A tasta.
Mary Gay Kearns Dec 2019
It has been months of misery stumbling on
Everyday even the effort of rising exasperates
I eat chocolate, peel an orange, open a surprise
For my last taste of a Christmas no longer enjoyed
But thank you for trying my loves.
Thank you for trying.
From Mummy Mary xxxxx
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
The Place Of The Solitaires.

Let the place of the solitaires
Be a place of perpetual undulation.

Whether it be in mid-sea
On the dark, green water-wheel,
Or on the beaches,
There must be no cessation
Of motion, or of the noise of motion,
The renewal of noise
And manifold continuation;

And, most, of the motion of thought
And its restless iteration,

In the place of the solitaires,
Which is to be a place of perpetual undulation.
130 · Sep 2019
Forget about it.
Mary Gay Kearns Sep 2019
When you are old
You live on your own
Nobody cares
Just swears.

Ones clothes are untidy
Shoe soles flat
And all of the mirrors
Show a poisoned apple.

Love Grandma Mary xxxx
129 · Apr 2018
Ordinarily attributed.
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
I wonder if I said nothing would you know
Could my name be drawn out along a lane
Cut- out stencils for an autograph
Hardened plasticine creating the frame.

Maybe the more that is said, the less heard
So sit beside what is not my poetry and
Remember in the grains of time what I am
All that is ordinarily attributed to a friend.

Love Mary x
129 · Jun 2018
It’s never too late.
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
I gave up writing letters when the frost set in
Having tied each bunch with coloured ribbon
So those clearing out could identify the writer
Before packing into bags for their final home.

Mother’s letters were always playful with a lot of
Funny drawings and a multitude of little sayings
There was often a five pound note for the children
And lots of kisses and hugs to each and everyone .

They came regular at holiday times when distant
Kept us apart and she and I felt unexpectedly sad
For we lived like each other, inside tins and things
Buttons and bows, flower pots, coffee-sponge cake.

I have her letters in drawers, inside books and cards
I have her glasses and blue case, last pair of shoes
A scarf where there remains the scents of The Island
The beach and sea, salty air and a jar of cold cream.

Love Mary to her mum xxxx
129 · Mar 2018
Boy from further ed.
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Meeting off the road where grass doth grow
Not far from the number ten bus stop
We together unsure of what
So I stretched out on this bench
The night was dark and wetly damp
You in your new boy clothes
Handsome but already chose
I didn't want to marry you
Or even spend much time
Just for half an hour or so
Sweep you with my arms
And so we tip-toed round the hour
Stroking things we should not
Until the street lights began to fade
Then, separately, we left that spot
Goodbye was not necessary
We never came again
Knowing this was not
Lovers' knot
But just experimenting.


Love Mary
Boy from further education
Don't know his name
129 · Aug 2018
Bob’s World
Mary Gay Kearns Aug 2018
Everywhere you look
Evil is masquerading as good
Care companies, aid agencies
The church.
Humanity has not evolved.


Love Mary x
Bob has a disabled son .Bob is now 70 .
His whole life he has been looking for help for his son who is now 30.
No one cares.This is our world.
128 · Apr 2018
My Sweet Roses
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Oh my roses you bloom so gently
Turning your palest petals down
And the raindrops roll off you
But no words not a sound.

How I love you as your moving
My sweet roses taking turns
Holding out for each other
As the day twists you round.

Then to take you to my lips close
And your fragrance breath it in
Filling my soul with your perfume
From your stamens on my skin.

Now to evening and the light fades
Delicate roses you come down
Scattering all your tenderest beauty
Silent petals lay on the ground.



Love Mary ***
128 · Dec 2018
Socrates
Mary Gay Kearns Dec 2018
‘True knowledge exists in knowing
you know nothing’.

Love Mary ***
128 · May 2018
Syrian child.
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
He holds the gun with crooked hand
Close to the sun in lonely lands
By fear encircled stands the child.
The blistered bricks about her land
A bulletin so breaks the sky
You gave the child no reason why.

Love Mary x
128 · Feb 2018
Wedding Day
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
The gardens are having their wedding day
All dressed in shades of white
With bouquets of greenery
Tucked neatly out of sight.
Magnolia Stellata
Grows a feathered gown
Fit for any regent queen
To stand and take her vows.

Less extravagant but equally graced
The Camelia is in full bud
Clusters of rosaries
Pinned against leaf lace.
Of all my loves is The Bride itself
Abundant in its ecstasy
A cascade of loveliness
Showers like pearl beads.

Not forgetting the Snowdrops
The Brunnera and Daffodils
The Weddings are for all of us
To stand and watch at will.

Love Mary
128 · Mar 2018
Bearable bearings
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
At certain moments
All that you are stops,
Like the falling of plates
Crashing onto alabaster
A tingling, biting into walls
One is pricked, ****** sore.
Unable to find bearable bearings
In the harvest of despair.
It takes a very long stretch to
Get together a pair of shoes
And walk that first mile.
How many times does a person endure
Before becoming a chip of china,
So sharp it would ****.
For most the brain rearranges and
The pilot reignites
But sometimes , just occasionally,
One dies.

Love Mary ***
128 · Jun 2018
Loose
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
She stood at the window
Hoping for rain
The sleeves of the cotton dress
Loose
And her shoes muddy.

‘Why’, she thought,
Sitting down at last
Did the world have to be so
Forgettable
Loose strands of grass.

Love Mary
128 · Jan 2019
Grey.
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
As soon as the light turns grey
I begin that same journey
Knowing the night will be unsettled
A repeated wakfulness
Winchingly carried out near to tears
For the exercise so carnivorous.

Love Mary xxxx
127 · Oct 2019
Saving
Mary Gay Kearns Oct 2019
You are my dream child
Flashing across words
Dancing along the table
With ripe apples and pears.

Nothing is more momentous
Than your smile below blue eyes
And golden hair tied in one braid.
I glimpse myself in your gaiety.

The gift of speech an intimacy with you
Your reading, sharing, laughing, cheeky
I have to say goodbye my dear Evelyn
Stay happy and watch the flowers grow.

Lots of love grandma Mary xxxxxxxx
127 · Mar 2018
Drifting
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Dry and dusty the old man lay
Had not moved a vessel for many a day
Slept below the moonlight stars
Thought of his weath and fading power
Drifting, drifting the old man saw
Far beyond the cliffs and golden shore
Had crossed the marker made for man
Slowly he felt the dying man's hand
Deeper, deeper into silent sleep
The water green, the water deep
And then from the ocean he heard a call
A voice rang out from distant shores
There in his softly swaying boat
Was lifted, feet first, by a riddled rope
Laid in comfort in a cabin bed
Fed and watered, bandaged head
Nearer and nearer the headland crept
Restored this dry and dusty vet
To this world again and whole .
Grateful he was this poor old soul.


Love Mary **
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
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
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