Few people can be believed
The lips are packed with lies
Words fall as if manœuvred
To benefit selfishness’s world.

I carry the dust of deceitful
tongues, swollen, diseased
Where is cleanliness left?
‘The dog’s bowl at the door’.

Love Mary ***

I took the left path where hydrangeas grew and sleepy primroses under woods, edged shady trees.
The empty stream ran quietly dry
With grass cuttings piling high.
If one peeped, one would find tiny creatures
To cast a sparkle here and there, a delight.
So on tip-toe, with sandels bent
Up high I reached to take
The plastic fairy as she twirled a pirouette
In a theatre made by chance.
Reflected in a silver mirror intwinned with ivy branch
A mottled foal tends his dreams and Chrismas robin chirps.

My brother took the right hand path where the trees grew fruit
Ripe berries from the gooseberry bush bulged their prickles.
Dangling from hawthorn now a cowboy with a hat
Looking for his fellow Indian with the yellow back sack.
Sheep gather in a hollow, dark, protected from the sun
And Mr toad, now lost of paint, has turned a bit glum.

And so we leave our woodland friends and travel up the *****
Winding round the rose bed and goldfish where they float.
Then up we climb, the middle route, to jump the pruned clipped
Hedge.
The lawn divided in two halves, a contemporary taste.

Now we're nearly at that place where if one was to turn
Could see down across the land
To the sea and sand.
Of all the beauties that I've known
Nothing beats this Island home.

Love Mary x




My grandfather’s retirement bungalow was in Totland Isle of Wight.
It was named Innisfail meaning ‘Isle of Ireland’.
Behind, the garden led down to magical and delightful to children who came as visitors. My grandfather would prepare this woodland with some suitable surprises.
The garden and woodland deserved its own name and in retrospect
Is now named ‘Innislandia’ to suggest a separate, mysterious land.
Beyond the real world.
In the poem A Country Lane on page 8 the latched gate is the back gate to my grandparent’s garden and bungalow in Totland as above.

I come from sunlight,
      The sweeping of leaves,
      South London streets,
      Lurburnum seeds;
      Hot semolina,
      A spoonful of jam,
      Hands full of gooseberries,
      That's who I am.

      I come from rose petals,
      The sound of the fairs,
      The smell of candyfloss
      Mist in the air;
      I come from warmth,
      My parents hands,
      Outings to parks,
      Both small and grand.

     I come from knowledge,
     True and false,
     From nursery rhymes,
     And stories and pictures of God;
     I come from gentleness,
     A quiet afternoon,
     From visions of loveliness,
     Sewn on a spool.

    I come from two worlds,
    With different ways,
    A threaded pearl necklace,
    And sensible soles
    A mother and father,
    I think I knew,
    I came and I wandered,
    I looked at the view.

       By Mary **

The magnolia sways in front of leaded lights
And I lay here thinking that all this beauty
Is all that there is or ever will be, a sanctuary
Where nature blossoms and is freshly laden.
But we are fallen like the dragonfly on wing
Hoovering, waiting for another knat to ****.

And as the carnivores devour their pray, daily
The human species, ruthlessly, turns over good
For another slice of the apple pie and so repeats
A cycle of never ending temptation baring thorn
With sadness I realise that I too wronged beauty
So mistaken in my haste for happiness and joy.

Love Mary **

Hello swans with your brown signets
On the near edges where the weeds blend
And the green meets the trusted stoney bed
You frighten a little with those huge wings
The strength to **** if fear struck an orange eye.

The ducks and drakes trailing fluffy ducklings
So linger daring the hands of bread and biscuits
A continuity of return until fat and bloated, stop.
Their tail feathers sharing a twitching line march
As they swim back to the safety of the reed beds.

Love Mary

One each end of a shelf
Victorian figurines
A boy and girl
Like crystalline
With stiff edged lace.
Never fell in love
But still precious
Bought by a Godmother
Who did not have children.

Then the plaster dancers
Spied in a box of my father’s
Given by a poor grandmother
Loved these two
With their net “tutus”
Such graceful arms
Long pointed legs
Felt their life twirling.

The difference between
Two worlds
The rich and stiff
Poor but beautiful.
My bedroom shelf,
With a poster of
**** Jagger,
in the middle,
smiling.

Love Mary x

He was lean, his aesthetic back stretches
Into neat trunks tied at the waist with cord
Sand sprinkled dipping in the circular pool
Where the shells and seaweed floated about
Like newly washed hair his shade of brown.

And this is how I remember him next to me
With our spades and colourful beach towels
Our clothes draped across rocks in the sun
And those plastic sandels with the salty buckles
Cutting into our fleet especially when new.

We were not very affectionate but occasionally
Romped the floors in our nightclothes at bed
Dragging the eiderdowns, downwards in disarray
And taking a length of string between bedrooms
So that we could keep connected by a joining tug.

This was childhood at its most fierce and beautiful
Before adolescence set its patterns on our forms
Marked us out for education and dress codes
Until then we were still securely latched in time
Asking each other, now and then, for piggy backs.


Love Mary for her brother ,Richard.

I will follow you
Down the alleyways of your mind
Lying under your sun
Meling into dreams
Left behind by a shadow
We are loves words
Floating in time
The adventurers of space
Touches emblems, enshrined
Never let it be said
We didn't care
For every fraction of day
Held together
This man and this woman
Looped by a golden bow.

Love Mary

For her Roger ***

At the end of the pier you could look out to sea
Listening to the swell flap on the rusty cast iron
Of geometrical supports.
Barnacles clung, sealed like gold nuggets
And in the distance the slow **** of a tanker.

The wind would whisk around the terminal
Throwing hair to the sky
Floating chandelier skirts tipped
Revealing best underwear.
And the clock sang its time to the birds.

Over both sides were fishing rod rows
Their owners sitting on canvas stools
Above seagulls nibbled the air for food scraps
And beneath strong swimmers bobbed
Watching children skim pebbles in the waves.

Love Mary xxxx

Whilst walking my father and I
Fell upon words that brought
Out the skylight in a window
And made a dog bark for sweets
We shared words together
Hand in hand with each other
Trampling roads near shops
And under railway aqueducts
Seeing the daffodils growing free
The bubbling of stones in a brook.

Love Mary **

So beautiful lay you all
In your tiny beds
Cuddled up with
Panda,  Firstlove,
Tiny tears and
Noel.
Little fingers curled tight
Knees rolled up
I leaned over you all and kissed
What was my great delight.

We went about together
Down the roads and parks
Caught a train to London
The museums and the art.

You grew up, gently, slowly
In each other’s arms
We made Chocolate Easter
Bunnies and Christmas shower.

We touched the lights together
Sang each other’s songs
Four wonderful children
Never got it wrong.

Love Mummy xxxxx

Cascades of red in Hedgehog Houle
The beginning of Autumn falls over
And breaks the greenest in morning
We pass the church arched doorway
And the hawthorn berries brightest.

Walking the steady step in this day
Finding the bend the windy winds
Show me little Alfie in his nestling
For love carries everything trusting
This pathway of flowing memories.

Love Mary **

I laid them on the old brick wall
Those many coloured hollyhocks
Their heads now cracked and open
Their stems brown and dried.

And as they pass, the friends of mine,
Gather in their gardener’s hands
What next year will begin to grow
The following year stand tall.

Love Mary ***

Come toddle here your hands stretched out
With chocolate mouse and lemon squash
You are my candy, sugar babe
Arrived at forty in a hurricane
But if love can spin a web
You little darling got in my head.

Love Grandma xxxx

The broken biscuits lay in a tin
An ordinary oblong tin
With turquoise pattern
And pink embossed flowers
Gold edged to finish the job.

How many times I visited
That tin on the middle shelf
In the top half of a cupboard,
Sawn door, to allow for fridge,
And quietly took out the tin.

Broken biscuits were my delight
All shapes and sizes tasty bites
Wafers,  bourbon, custard creams
Rich tea, digestive all suited me
Sometimes fig sandwich, pleased.

Love Mary

Under the hillbillies of yellow afternoons
You sleep in the sunshade toes quite ****
The curls on your head getting rather hot
But mummy loves you her cuddly ***.

Love Grandma x

The bungalow in Isle of Wight brick
Surrounded by concrete flag stones
Was my perimeter playground
Lifting tanned legs under smocked dress.

Against the side walls bees suckled
On those red berries amongst leaf
I watched their pollenated wings buzz
And thought of honey yet to be made.

Round and round like a circus animal
I danced the summer sunshine out
Waiting as my shadow fell on ground
Announcing cool sea air and home time.


Love Mary **

We met through a latched gate
down a straight concrete path
With flowers and grass on either side
To a white cottage with a
Thick thatched roof.
To the right of the front door
Was a climbing, yellow,’ Chelsea’ rose.

The garden was an orchard of tenderness with
Five elderly leaning apple trees bearing fruit.
And David Austin roses in a variety of colours
Many wild and cultivated flowers grew and plentiful
Of bird song.

Roger and I sat together at a small
Table and chairs
And were given a delightful meal
Of chicken and vegetables
Followed by ice cream and mixed fruit salad
After resting with cups of tea
I wandered round the garden to see all the
Beauty of this wilderness and a boat in a large
Rather dilapidated shed
Later to be rebuild into a fine garage of
Original Suffolk stone and two wooden doors.

Our time together was very precious to me.
Filling in much that I had heard about, but
Never encountered, from a very dear relative.

In the afternoon we went into Bury St Edmunds central
To see the Cathedral, Abbey Gardens, with resplendent
Flower beds frequently replenished in an abudance of colourful changes and the antiquated book shops.
The day was concluded with strawberries and cream in the
Park sitting on a bench in the sun.

We had a long journey back to Watford.
I never forget this day so unusual was it
Made by my friend.

Love Mary xxxx

I am nothing beyond the starry sky
Just an atom in the fiery furnice
Smaller than a telescope can hit at
I once was a girl who moved in air
Kissed a boy and jumped for joy.

My days are gone for others to steal
Maybe someone with a face like me
To begin a story they nearly knew
And burst upon universe in flames
A daughter for someone to rename.

Love Mary x

Wondering the evening stillness
We left the bluebell beds
And the sculptured wooden rose
To trample the wearing pathway
Down to the campus amphitheater.

A patch of daylight brought the party
To look upwards where transparent rope
Made a crossing of wavering sun beams
A celebration of Art Installations with an
unexpected rhyme.

Downwards the plateau, a semicircle of grass
Melts into July’s empty classroom of books
As wasted writing and hours of hot fluttering
In a breeze with discarded wineglasses and cups
Await the sound of trumpets and a golden crown.

Love Mary ***

Never seen an apple tree
With crimson and green
Set against sunflowers
On a hot afternoon.

Thé garden is laden with
Visual delight and I move
To gather favourite sights
A waterbutt  blue and white.

Love Mary ***

Your party an animal affair
The elephant and kangaroo
A dog in a ruff, upside down
on a tub
And a friendly cockatoo.

We all sat round the ring
The lights were bright
The music a jaggedly song
Then in came Queen Bee
On her trapeze.

Mr clown took a leap
But missed the band
In Queen Bee’s hand
Gliding safely
To earth by his feet.

Love Grandma ***

Take me to the Rookery with its many paths
A tea house selling refreshments in pretty glass
Three striped lollies covered in chocolate beads
Biscuits and sandwich are all that we need.

The garden was set out, in brick oblong beds
Raised from the ground and divided by hedge
Many bush roses, of the older kind, smelling of
Cold cream and sweet camomile.

There was a terrace with steps leading down
To a sunken garden where the roses reclined
Hanging over arbours, pink , white and cream
And other perennials added to the scene.

This place a haven at the top of Streatham hill
Does anybody know it, it might be there still?
My daddy took me often on a Sunday afternoon
To ramble in the sunshine, and play at my will.


Love Mary x

Travelling by foot in whatever weather
I took to walking the gardens' route,
With single lens reflex camera
Still able to take the sort of pictures
That stop the eyes from wandering.
Photos in black and white
Where contrasts given a subtlety
Slowly revealing the depths
Of the familiar.

And into the park
Where rain, recently fallen,
Drenches the lens with jewels
Dropping from tree and cloud,
Sporadically,
Catching the light
With its rainbow spectrum
And collecting moments
Of nature's splendour
Into unnoticed places.

Love Mary ***

The dragonflies and meadow-sweet
Follow the banks of ‘The Wandle’
Allowing what is hidden and not heard
Behind posted iron railings
To be noted, found on a map, imagined
Its very name conjures up the river’s journey
Drawing one into its currents and flows
A place of beauty where time seems slow
Rippling the edges of thought, living as a space,
Exploration, given  by inclusion and exclusion
Forever to ‘wandle along’ under the sky
Between the gaps in the real
And what finds itself from what
Came before in experience and words.

Love Mary x
The River Wandle is the largest river of the south southwest sector of London, England. Its name is thought to derive from the community around its mouth, Wandsworth. About 9 miles long, it passes through the London Boroughs of Croydon, Sutton, Merton, and Wandsworth to join the River Thames on the Tideway..
Mouth: River Thamesnn

Lady you stand at the end
Where entrance meets daylight
Under the red brick archway
Between the buildings,
A white cap hides your hair
And the Dutch costume
Is of yesterday.
Silhouetted in geometry
Your profile senses thought
Far out in the distance
Where hopes and dreams reside.
You are as ancient as humanity
Womenkind contemplating
Their singularity,
Waiting for time
To eclipse this solitude.

Love Mary

From Pieter De ***** The Courtyard Painting
National Gallery London.

Bear came to do my garden today
It had got into rather a mess,
Sticky Jenny and dandelions,
Rotten roots and garlic shoots
Got poor Bear betwixed;
Hot and sweating, really fretting
Bear began to cry,
Why was it that I thought gardening
From painting let me hide.
But off he went along the fence
Pulling out the weeds
Found some bulbs that did not smell
Dug  them up, as fast, as well
Now they're  back in a different spot
Three short stems in an empty plot;
Made me laugh just to see
How silly that Woolly Bear can be.


Love Mary
Thank you to Ian my Gardener

What a beautiful mouth you have
And so we beat our boats against
The currents ceaslessly reinventing
Ourselves in the knowledge that
Nothing much really matters
And you don’t have to worry
About flies or parents just
Cleanliness.

And this is how we do it on
The steps of Morocco in grass
Skirts and a sombrero under
A blue sky with tomorrow
Waving goodbye.

Love Mary **

The rows of backgarden fences looked much the same
Crumbling and split wooden planks, large tree roots
Dividing up the length and making mysterious entrances
Where rather dilapidated gates, latched firmly,
So animals could not stray,
Allowed for the start
Of magic.
Out of all these fences one belonged to my grandparents and
Through which our travels to Narnia began.



Love Mary x

The insects and wild flowers
Follow the banks of ‘The Wandle’
Allowing what is hidden and not heard
Behind posted iron railings
To be noted, found on a map, imagined
Its very name conjures up the journey
Drawing one into its currents and flows
A place of beauty where time seems slow
Rippling the edges of thought, living as a space,
Exploration, given  by inclusion and exclusion
Forever to ‘wandle along’ under the sky
Between the gaps in the real
And what finds itself from what
Came before in experience and words.

Love Mary x

A road of palest lime fluttering Sycamore trees
Some almost leafless, others coronets still there
Through the golden branches colbalt blue skies
Lilac bushes, the garden daisies, flower in rows.

Thinning Robinna casts shadows of dim shade
Contrasting the red Acer’s lace leaf with green
The trunk arch of handkerchief laden Foxglove
Holds open its beautiful boughs to be admired.

For Autumn spreads my walk in glorious glitter
Though the evening pulls in the coldness of year
Making the best of these last savages of seasons
Gathering leavings, the birdtable spills its seeds.

Love Mary ***

Michael leiris said of Picasso

Everything we love is about to die,
And that is why,
Everything we love must be summed up,
With all the high emotion of farewell,
In something so beautiful we shall never forget it.


And this is true of us poets, too.
So those moments we loved
Are captured with such beauty
That the heart is taken back.

Love Mary xxxx

If you found Bluebell
Laying in the grass
Smiling at the daisies
What would you ask?
Is she a fairy child
Or baby princess
Someone's lost treasure
Please do ask.
For I know a Bluebell
As beautiful as any flower
A little catch of wonder
Of bubbles in the sky
She was gifted by an angel
To show us the way
Of lightness and petal shapes
On a sunny day .

For Bluebell love Grandma xxxx

In purple checked dresses we are confronted
Behind a piano sits ‘Miss Creak’ head of house
She has one bad eye, unfixable from childhood
But plays beautifully perched on an oakwood
And fabric stool. This is our secondary school.

On the wall above the piano is a framed print
‘Madonna of the Meadows’ by the artist Bellini
I pushed a drawing of a couple intertwining
Under ‘her’ door knowing she never would have
But a boy may have felt affection for ‘that’ affliction.

Here we all ate meals, did fashion shows and sang
I was glad my dress was purple not orange or red
Went better with my blue eyes and blonde hair
The rest of the school diveded into coloured checks
To represent Shakespearean female characters.

Just opened in Wandsworth a new comprehensive
Serving all abilities, behaviours and nationalities
Cordelia, Beatrice, Juliet, Katharine,
Portia, Rosalind, Olivia, Viola a rather unsuitable
Vision for such an uptake of adolescent froth.

Miss Creak was, kindly, I wish I had always been.

That happiest moments come in childhood
When innocence combed ones hair
And Saturdays bring respite
Bedrooms lined with a few toys
While two fair ground ballerinas
Curtesy on a white wood mantelpiece.

Then that snuggling down to sleep
Under homemade feather eiderdown
Hot lemon and sugar brought in a glass
The certainty of mother's voice
Climbing the stairs with wine gums.

Even if time stretched patience
It arrival brought only surprises
And leaf rubbings on paper
Were treasured achiements
Displayed in cardboard mounts.

Love Mary x

You're  here today in your spot
Where the footpaths cross
And a little to the left
Under those tall trees
On a patch of flat earth.

Across the grass to the right
The old Plane, magnificent
In structure spreads branches
Like a globe of lightest green
Catching the glittering  sun.

Your easel, an old brown relic
With leather carrying handle
Held together by a strap
Carries your canvas and paints
Whilst you wear a tweed cap.

And what I like, standing back
To watch, is the quiet consistency
Of observation; two living forms
Joining in the imagination
To create beauty and truth.

Love Mary

Often we approached the bay over high ground
Taking the track from Totland between the heather
Where the small blue butterflies dusted the grass
With a fluttering sparkle and the gorse spoke yellow.
The climb to the top was arduous with many stops
Sitting on prickles, the scent of sheep buzzing
Around our ears and nostrils and filling sandels.
A rest refreshed with that thermos coffee hot on lips.
Then in an instant we came out of shadow to meet
The white glare off the sea and a downward decent
Across grassland filled with thistles
To drop
Through style and gate and down onto the road.

Love Mary

WIMBLEDON COMMON

Wimbledon common
Was always the place to go,
Catching the train from Streatham
The family all aglow,
Sandwiches in a paper bag
Thermos in a sack,
Plastic sandels and tennis racket
Not forgetting the cricket bat.

Everyone was skippy
The sun high in the sky,
Dad had his umbrella
But the rain was shy,
Jumping from the platform
Down a row of steps,
Brother took a tumble
And that was that.

Plasters in a pocket
All was mended soon,
Finally recovered
Felt over the moon,
Reached the grassy stretches
Whoops mind the dogs,
Come away from the lovers
They're out for a jog.

Find a shiny tree trunk
Horizontal on the ground,
Four happy people
Tuck in to raspberry jam,
Now for the thermos
Plastic cups ahead,
Here come the wasps
To eat our jam and bread.

Later penguin biscuits
And a trip behind the bin,
Dad puts out the wickets
Let's see who wins,
After a quiet session
Brother looses his cool,
Slings the bat skyward
You should see it go,
Mother looked upwards
Covering her head,
Just managed to miss it
Landing on the hedge.

I went off walking
To gather pretty flowers,
Dad hid under the paper
We had a quiet hour,
Clouds gathering slowly
The sun going down,
What a lovely day in the country
We're now homeward bound.

In memory and gratitude to my lovely mum and dad
Grace and Eric Ayton- Robinson who always did their best.
Love Mary **

‘Why ask’,said the field mouse to Hedgehog
Who scuttled along softly on four short legs
Wearing a bobble hat made of apache wool
‘I don’t know but truths must be brought on.’

‘Yes’, said Mousey as it perched with fairy
In the brown bed filled with green cuttings
For only here with my friend is the world’s
Beauty allowed a sharing heart and voice.

So take me into the garden with pink roses
Growing one with up turned bright bud
Shoes holding tightly your peering down
Fills out the future with seeded windmills.

Love Mary x

Under all the days that I have lived
Are you, my family, carrying bags
Filling my shoes with pebbled love
Running the last steps to catch up.

Hands splash out the blue circles
Where lollies drip Coca Cola ice
Wet towelling holding us so close
An avenue of trees to walk home.

Love Mary x

Little Dutch girl
So plainly dressed
In white frock and apron
And cotton cloth cap.

Feet made for walking
The hard cobble streets
Hands that will carry
Provisions bought.

A life of simplicity
Quietly led
With homemade toys
A wooden  dolly's bed.

You hear stories from
Maids in the house
Kitchen mischief
And musical mice.

When you're a woman
What will you choose
A life of domesticity
Or another route.

Love Mary ***

Two eyes appeared from under a broadrimmed hat.
They looked around with astonishment.

In a schoolroom, far off in the distance, a boy was
Busy making a wooden bowl.
The teacher unaccustomed to such slowness
Requested a completion date.
“I am not slow thought the boy, just working
Away until I get it right.”
He met the teacher’s gaze with an expression
Of opacity and a sense of bewilderment.

On another day, at a later date, this same boy
Was found in his metalwork class applying
Cylinders of gases to his small creation, quietly,
Hoping for a connection before he was blown
To smithereans. Two blue eyes concentrated as
The jets of flames hissed into space.
Too long the gases flowed.
The master rose, the boy shook and his eyes
Widened.

In a playground, sometime earlier,
A small boy could be seen playing without a coat.
Gossiping women spoke of this unnatural act,
This exception to the fold. The boy stared back
Hearing their words with his eyes.

Decades later when his hair had turned from
Brown to grey but his eyes were still blue
And wide apart, he painted a little ***
Sitting on a pale surface, gazing into nothingness.
This painting took him a long time.
He had to get it right, the tones , the lines,
The connections.

After he finished ‘Little ***’, he sat down
And stared into the two blue blobs set wide
Apart on its surface and he thought, “this is
Me, the boy, the man, the painter, of wide
Apart, unnameable moments.”

The Beginning.

Love Mary ***

In the ashes of division hope ignited
Unity decided a new fate, in its wake.
My father lived in Chester Road,
Off Ladbrook Grove, eight children
In a tenament flat back to back.

The poverty of the forties are
Now palatial palaces, white pillared.
My father joined the army to escape
To marry and move to Streatham,
South London, to an Edwardian terrace.

Notting Hill, the divided community
Chelsea and Kensington let it happen.
My grandmother moved to a new town
And this year we all watched on TV
Grenfell burn as an inferno in the dark.

Love Mary

By running to the past
Where the sun came in
Can there be a retrieval
Of the happiness rising
On blue Iris in its bloom.

For the past is safely lived
Untouchable, protected
And the wandering warm
The hawthorn prickles
Not a spray or blight.

Love Mary x

If I read you I might get you wrong
Resting eyes in the places that do not
Belong
Or awkward mistakes of vision;
From this I refrain
In order that I can love you
Without discrimination
Not knowing what it is
That you are
Floating beside me
My daily weathercock.


Love Mary **

The best part of the day
Sun on bramble bushes
Ripe with blackberries
The fields smokey brown
As contrast to the blue sky.

The pleasure of walking
Each stride, healthy strong
Smiling the hour’s destiny
Here and back, to meander
In the sensible shoes, today.

Love Mary ***

‘It will get colder than this’, said He,
On a rainy late August afternoon.
Knowing that would not matter
I thought of him alone in his chair.

So sad I was but not for me, now,
I had known for such a long time
And the pain spreads itself along
But thinking him, singular, alone.

I no longer able to comfort him
Or stroke his hair’s silver thread
And watch a finger on keyboard
This is unbearable priceless love.

Love Mary x

Poor little thing unwanted
Uncared for by knowledge
Wondered at how it could be
Such cruelty allowed to be
To be given out to victims
Nothing ever improved
Since time began.

Only a few years of vision
After the 2nd World War
Claimed by a selfish
Generation of smartphones.

Love Mary



Love Mary ***

At weekends in mid-August if the weather sunny
A girl dresses in bright fluorescent pink socks
The sort sold three in a pack at the local market
Puts on her best T- bar white shoes and is ready.

A family outing which included a younger brother;
And a bundle of toys, cricket bat and picnic bags
The train went from Tooting Bec to Mordon station
And from there a tiring walk was undertaken.

Delightful it was with the cow- parsley and crickets
Red Admiral butterflies and leaf blossom on the trees
The siblings, only eighteen months apart, thought
They could barely wait to arrive at their special spot.

And so they did, well before one o’clock, in high spirits
Racing the river as it flowed hidden behind iron railings
Nettles in the tall grass and air scented meadow- sweet
To the trunk improvised seat by The Wandle .

Love Mary x
'

After sixty years have past,
I feel that same ache beneath my heart
As I did as a child of five
It slept by me in the dark
Searched for in the day
The wanting of return for loss
Which translates but does not go
Remains a relentless longing.

Love Mary **