In this still dark morning hour
before the day has yet begun
by water still and icy cold
with absence of a warming sun
All is quiet so with tippy toe
by the canal I slowly tread
as signs of life on longboats close
dimly light the path I’ve led
She said it was too hot,
too slow,
too fat,
too skinny,
too long,
too short,
too near,
too far,
too messy,
too loose,
too tight,
too much,
too little,
too soon,
too late.
We were too drunk. Too stoned. Then, in the afternoon,
too sober.
But it was not, and never would be, too anything.
Except, maybe, too unkind.
And so it is to Bradford
on another winter night
I find myself at Noble Comb
with time to sit and write
It’s fairly packed this evening
with families eating out
and workers sharing pints of beer
their voices raised to shout
Loss and pains. though just part of living… set us apart, others didn’t understand. But we knew. We just knew.
We wrapped ourselves in each other’s griefs, grateful to need no explanations,, understanding without words; afraid of more losses (can I go through that again?) resisting pain, change and the unknown.
I gathered all my memories
lest they faded to the past
No melancholy there
but I wanted them to last
For collectively they’ve shaped me
into what I am today
Precious to hold onto
as my tomorrow’s seize the day
As a seagull I flew inland from the sea
Up in a yellow-tinged sky
Looking down with the freedom I commanded in flight
as I swooped and I soared up on high
I watched as the river meandered below
Through the town I am proud to call home
with its cluster of houses gathered close to the sea
over routes I have so often flown
In this river’s silted tributaries
Navigation now
Reserved for smallish river craft
Low of beam and bow
And yet, two hundred years ago
Galleons here were made
Crafted beams at Bramber
Where many keels were laid
Such changing times of commerce
The Adur’s here provided
For this fishing port of Shoreham
Which by the sea has long resided
Last spring the laurel hedge by my window was empty
No chirruping, calling, no rustling of glossy leaves
No fledglings edging off the nest onto twigs and then the adjacent fence
No wobbling and frantic flapping as parents patiently cajole
No triumphant flights to the Rose bushes
Only to tumble to the grass
As the chosen twig was too thin
Fool’s love is all that they say
they abhor the pain and still want to stay
Can’t change the way we are so willing
the way it morphs and shines
like broken glass in a roll of hay
I have a beach of shingle mixed
With golden sea-washed sand
Its grandeur and its mystery
Forged by God’s own hand
I have a river winding through
The valley from the sea
Its tidal water carrying
Swans and seabirds oft to me
I lived a little broken
like an old grey bag of bones
and despite the life around me
felt a long, long way from home
Abandoned to no purpose
each day was like the rest
and although the sun gave promise
it felt like second best
In a small corner I curl
turning pages, I am lost to imagination
oblivious to time passing
minutes meld to hours
And this time is mine
Absorbing words from far away minds
Caught in that beautiful moment
when words caress my soul
with a comfort wholly realised
