What was it I found in those words
Spoken with such grace
Given under the lavender
And behind a privet hedge.

Was it that knowledge is nothing
And kindness flows down a path
And roses grow round doorways
And the truth lasts and lasts.

Love Mary ***

Sunflowers have no reason
To feel sad
Their petals fall off
Leaving seeds for next year.

For us it is different
Our endings filled with tears
Our hearts break the silence
Our love was it all.

I'd rather been a sunflower
Its seeds fed to the birds
Its flowers giving magnificence
To one and all.


Love Mary ***

It was mother's future that drawer of mine
She'd waited to collect it for a long time
Only one daughter , just engaged
So now was the chance to exchange.

Friday was a new plate for china set
A misty blue, with grey flowers etched
Each wrapped in tissue white
And tied with a ribbon stripe.

But today meals are eaten out or on ones knee
Or thereabouts
The table rarely laid with clothe and bowl
Finger dipping is the rule.

To this drawer I would inspect
Heaving the mounting treasures out
A tablecloth and kitchen box
Cutlery with rose embossed.

Love Mary

Delirious.

No one ever realises, knows,
Other than in retrospect,
The significance of their action,
How the years will mount up,
Spilling this moment,
Out across the foundation of their lives.

There I was delirious with happiness,
Seventeen and a bit and skipping,
Running in the dark,
To tell,
To tell someone my news.
Circumstance did not touch ground,
Merrily I was oblivious,
As the door opened to the crying of a child
I stepped in,
Announcing my news with a smile,
Trembling with fear of this,
Holding arms she gathered me in,
I joined the clan,
Fell into the limitation,
As she had before,
And thousands before we were even born.
Her mother smiled, another bit of guilt lifted;
I came from a good home.

As I left hearing my footsteps
On the wet streets and creeping into bed,
My innocence dissipated,
The next day, the beginning,
The reality took away that joy,
Leaving the news to be broken
To the grandparents of my
Unborn child.

Love  Mary

Thank you dear Roger for being the father of that child and giving me a good life.

I wrote a list of many a yard
To be followed to the rule
A list to give my short life
A vision of a truth.

It extended all the inches I knew
Held tight to every child
Started at the top of my head
And fell with the evening star.

Love Mary x

The road lay like swansdown
under a light leaflet of snow
The corner a curvaceous cut
Stright towards the stars
Beauty bearing truth
Nature has its own.


Love Mary ***

Evelyn
For you are beautiful
Unknown mystery
Washed in the waters
Blown by a breeze.

Waking each day
To the sound of cat's purring
The temperature of sunlight
Through curtained leaves.

Can you hear our loving
Feel together our song
We ride on your heartbeat
Shape ourselves around your body.

This is now
Between today and soon after
We wait in the doorway
Of futures unlaced.

Love Grandma

Breaking into the garden shed
The children found a collection
Of old toys, so glad to see them
Washed and restored they play
Taking squirrel for a walk and
Putting up the old tent to hide .

Love Mummy ***

A bird, not heard, flying high, some sky
Over meadow, above sea, see snow, landfill
So flap the palest of wing up lifted it sings
His secret only known is carried into flow.

Love Mary ***

It was not to be Hoppedy!

I never made it past the shed ends,
Back to back at sixty five,
The gates for the everlasting
Had been closed down early,
When it came, to my days ride.

Shame as I turned that corner
Making  a maturing point,
Realising what life wasn't
Opening the seeds of delight.
But it was not to be Hoppedy!

Love Mary ***

This house on the corner with a tree
A bright green tree with fingered leaves
Is the last place for me to close a door
Pick a dandelion from a circle of grass.

A destination miles from an arrival
Where all doors keep open to the blue
Complétion of a life, my last window
To look out of and sit here with you.


Love Mary **

At some point
One realises
It has always been
About someone else.


Love Shakespeare

There is love
Then there is great love
One may only every know
That there is one kind.



Love Mary **

Without tenderness the world dies
For it is the only emotion
That prevents evil
It is the most powerful
Incorporating compassion
But not intellectually based
Coming from a deep sense
Of the fragility of things.
Unfortunately it may be selective
In fact usually is
And as such weakened
By virtues of taste.


Love Mary ***

Maybe in the fields where the mice run free
And the flower stems reach two feet high
Where the air circulates in the sky
And the soil is devoid of pollution
Only here is there a chance
Of  miracles.


Love Mary **

What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt, —
dumbly calling, deafly listening—that
in misfortune, even death,
encourage others
and in its defeat, stirs
the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.
So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.

Marianne Moore

Sorry for the inconvenience
Forgive the trouble
Tried all sorts
To do my best
Watch me flickering
As I say goodbye
You were the best lights
I could ever buy.

Love Mum ***

From Totland to Alan Bay.

Climbing by path and road
Until we reached the edge
When then by turning found
It leaving the chalky cliff.

And follow out across the fields
A view to tip the eyes,
Heavenly laden with wild parsley
And fluttering butterflies.

The accent so gradual as not to tire
With sunshine overhead
The summit came slowly into sight
As did what had been hid.

Dresses blowing in the breeze
Clung all about our knees
Salty spray misted the air
And the seagulls squawked away.

Then down we looked towards Alan Bay
All glittering foaming sea
The colliding of the coloured pebbles
A wildness and free.

All our senses did explode
Our hearts began to beat
For here lay so much loveliness
Just below our feet.

Love Mary ***

Speech came easily that day
The day before it happened
Gaiety lay on his shoulder
Shimmering September sun
They had hoped she would
But neither mentioned
So he never definitely knew
And never would
For he drowned
****** under by
Dangerous currents
Just off coast
After attending
A friend’s funeral.
Beatrice is now
Twenty or more
She can but dream
Of the father
She never met.

Love Mary

Until March the Peacock stayed in
Keeping his eyes to himself.
Afraid of the rain and coldness of earth
The snowy harsh ice.

But Spring filled his garden with flowers
The trees fluttered with bees
And the sunshine on his feathers
Asked him to open his wings, please!

For a Peacock is a man of display
Loved the people as that passed
Stalked the grass of his grounds
And fanned us all at last.

She never had big enough eyes,
That's what I thought looking in the mirror,
And they were blue, so in photos
Always looked faded.
They were taken from my father,
The colour of speedwell in the meadows,
My mother's were hazel ,nearly brown.
Like my brothers.
Eyes are the entry to the soul it is said.
Over the years I came to like them.
Quiet eyes that lay on the surface of a canvas,
A painting created by a friend,
Who saw the beauty in them.

Thank you Ian for my  painting .
Love Mary **

Changes the way I think of you;
It means you go beyond
To another plane
Where the heart of another resides
In its separateness
And enter.
Fearing not the disruption
Or consequence upon you;
Opening your fortifications
The historical bindings
To embrace a colour
Never mixed before
And spreading it
As a blanket on the ground
For us both to sit upon.

Love Mary **

We met in the Natural History Museum
I was sure it was her.
Beautiful blonde hair
Cut Cilla Black style.
Her sister, too,
Who had lived in the flat
Above a sweet shop.
Now with two children,
The girl the image of Carol.
I did not speak
For fear of awakening the past.
Just left and took up my good life.

Love Mary ***

Jay is a handsome boy
With long dark curls
Reaching below his shoulders
Reminders of my other lads
His uncle Alex and brother Richard.
Grown in stature and understanding
Smart in striped shirt
Sitting in the sun
Under the Robina tree
I thought how far he has come.

Not my son but my daughter's
Unspoken hero of his age
Worked with seven other
Offspring to bring about
Some sort of change.
Made it to university
Computers he did choose
Compelled by an inner calling
Found a way
He is no fool.
Love you grandson
In the morning of your life
Hope you keep
That spark alive
And I will continue to be glad.

Love to Jay from Grandma ***

Standing on the bridge looking down stream
The sunlight a curtain through weeping leaf
Trailing their ends in the moving slowness
Of a shallow children filled patch of crystal.

Love Mary **

Looking down from such rare and breaking site
To watch transparent wings flap the velvet sea
Ounces of oceans drained from chalky white cliffs
Where grasses took root and flowers windy peep
Peering  between yellow gorse on Tennison's Downs
We children, ran parted the *****, daring the edge
To be found, and there stood toes rolled gripping
Where grass meets air, the sparkling waters
And sailing ships, tugged the sea in mystery.

Love Mary **

Oh to trudge up the lane
In the heat of the sun
Keeping to the near side edge
To face on coming cars
I would the wildest flowers, pick,
Hold them in my hand
Wrap around a handkerchief
With an embroidered band.

As the upward ***** straightened
A bungalow came into view
With my mother's gardening shoes
And a flower *** or two
How I loved this moment
My heart turned to glee
All my inside whispered
Soon be here with thee.

Love Mary your daughter **

Please does anyone know a poem
Called " TheWhite Page " or "The Blank Page" or
Maybe verse.
I think it may have been written by Wallace Steven
Or a philosopher.
It is a beautiful piece about the impossibility
Of capturing thought.
And has echoes of the sea and crashing
Waves at bottom of cliffs.

Please can you find it for me
Before I depart .
It says so much
And I need to hear it one
Last time.

Love Mary ***

I wonder if we were together long enough for the weeds
To grow along the fences and in the ditch by the wall
If we would become cement.

Love Mary x

Now we find
The garden
Sweet with lavender,
The roses giving out
Their perfume,
Still air after the storm;
Scorched pavements
From sun's shining;
Hollyhock coloured stripes
Horizontal laddered stems;
Quietness in the afternoon hour
Before the coming home
Begins.

Love Mary ***

By the wall sat I
Dressed spread out
Tear in eye
On my knee a baby boy
Borrowed bundle
Of treasured joy.

Love Mum

Thank you to Pam for sharing her first baby
With a young girl.

The hurt came
Unknown to me
But I felt it
You gave it to me.

Love Mary xxxx

And there it was at the top of her heart
Filling all the chambers where she lived
Those days in the war when emptiness
Called everyday reminding the beating
That it had nothing to do but to wait.

And it never came that  peacefulness
Carried in the pocket of her dress
With the flower stem of lavender
And a peach stone of foreign hope
That just soon the sun would open.

Love Mary ***

It may not be the best,
Or even have decent,
I have no card to give you,
Will last year's do?
The soap in the bathroom
I have replaced,
So now you can wash
Your dear hands and face;
The Jaffa cakes could have hearts on,
As they were bought with love,
So have a Happy Valentine's Day
My one and only Rog.


From Mary to Roger  **

Send me postcards to heaven.

Send me a postcard to heaven,
To let me know who wins,
Been watching stricklycomedancing
Hope it's Debbie Magee.
Really like Ruth and Anton,
And Susan and Kevin are fun,
Davood so romantic,
And the two lads
Had great runs.

Please let Lily in Casualty,
End up in Ian's arms,
He really lacks all purpose,
But together
They might be grand.
If she goes to Hong Kong,
Letters can correspond,
But don't give up
On courting,
We've waited far too long .

Love Mary ***

GERTIE.  

A family of nine
Mother died
Father took a gun but no one knew
He blew
For the sorrow was too much
I heard.
But you my children's Nana
With your country life
Potato digging
Outside toilet
Did not expect
A Rolls Royce
You came to visit regularly
And at our door
My children stood
Arms wide for your smile
The smell of lipstick
On their cheek
At each third weekend
Roast beef in paper bag
Toys and sweeties galore
At first I found it hard
Different flesh I suppose
But came to love you
As my own
A second mother
Not home grown.

And when you died
At eighty
From a brain tumour
I felt I had lost
Someone I could trust
Stoic saviour of my soul
Whose knitting
I have still.

Love Mary

To Aunty Betty my children's wonderful Nana from Walthamstow. Thank you for all your love and I m

Fooling about on a rattlesnake
The sand slipped quickly by
Nobody noticed the cliff face
Only the boy and I
With rings on our fingers
Wherever we Stroud.

Me and the jam and dodger
Were never really aloud.

Love Mary xxxxx

There is a place I'd rather be
Where the world is clear to see
No direction, cannot breathe
Only saints are trouble free
How to wait, patiently,
For the time set down for me
Travelled all familiar roads
Came to a halt, no longer bold
All that is and all that was
Is what I gave and what I lost
For my life I say but little
I loved it so and want to get better.

Love Mary **

When the hour is darkest,
And not a wind comes near,
Know that you are complete,
And who gives a care.

Because, by truth, few are stirred,
Most, complacently out of ear,
Only those, who hear the drums,
Say this life can't always be sung.

Love Mary ***

When the truth is withheld
The world feels cold
Frostbite in the soul
Tiredness old.


Love Mary

It was a yellow background,
The sort of yellow that lets the light in,
Here and there were brown rubbings from furniture,
But the overall pattern of black arabesque stalks and couplets of flowers;
A spiky pattern , rather,
Not quite nice in some way.
I expect the rolls had been a reduction at sale time,
Those January trips with dad in the rain,
Arms laden and collars tightly round faces.

I would sit by the fire tracing the design,
Making up stories in the landscape;
That yellow wallpaper was my childhood,
My father's love, my mother's comforter,
I am sitting by it now just remembering.

Love Mary **

The waves tickled the beach with their coming
Just on the turn, gathering shells and shingle
The sand was sloppy, waterlogged,
You watched me skip along the bay
A brief honeymoon in a homemade wedding dress
With the bouquet of pink roses in a guest room vase
They must have surmised our new status
I felt surprisingly shy.


Love Mary **

We are holding on
On thé edge of time
Looking out
Crying out loud
Is this the beginning
Or is it the end
Life as we knew it
Folded down.
Love Mary

Tiny, so small,
Not really there at all,
Arrived in the night,
To all our delight,
Came the morning light,
The sound of the birds,
The sun over the horizon,
Your first words;
And from your cradle,
I lifted you,
Only a handful,
My eyes full of dew,
That little cry,
Lifted my heart!
Us two together,
Never to be apart.

For my children, Katharine ,Alexander, Victoria and Elizabeth Kearns

Love filling a blank page
What it says at the end of its days
Is what two people made of it.

Love Mary x

Bronze through Autumn
Light strings across path
Leaf as nugget on branch
And me running to meet
The boy of my dreams
Through shadowed steps.

Love Mary **

Words - Poem by Edward Thomas


Out of us all
That make rhymes
Will you choose
Sometimes -
As the winds use
A crack in a wall
Or a drain,
Their joy or their pain
To whistle through -
Choose me,
You English words?

I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer:
Strange as the races
Of dead and unborn:
Strange and sweet
Equally,
And familiar,
To the eye,
As the dearest faces
That a man knows,
And as lost homes are:
But though older far
Than oldest yew, -
As our hills are, old, -
Worn new
Again and again:
Young as our streams
After rain:
And as dear
As the earth which you prove
That we love.

Make me content
With some sweetness
From Wales
Whose nightingales
Have no wings, -
From Wiltshire and Kent
And Herefordshire, -
And the villages there, -
From the names, and the things
No less.
Let me sometimes dance
With you,
Or climb
Or stand perchance
In ecstasy,
Fixed and free
In a rhyme,
As poets do.

I had no valentines card
To give you
So I made you one
From an Ann Cockerill
Advertisement painting
Of a *** of Spring flowers
And wrote on it
In my poor hand
Love you

Pinky Woo **

A fairy in a dress of snow waves to the plastic butterfly,
A six pointed star watches as the painted bird sleeps
And ceramic leaves make circles in the wind.

Mr spaceman , all in red, nods to the dinosaur and says,
" If it weren't for you I'd never have seen the globe of blue",
The boy on the backyard fence cries,
And the Christmas doll lets down her hair
For the very first time.

Love Mary **

Startling though love is
Coming in the back door
When we know so little
Tied our hands together
On a pink collared shirt
Round a neck went arms
To take that first sweet kiss.

Love Mary