Imms

The honest man, Immanuel

Is dead

Spare message all we have

We foreign friends far flung

No photograph, no funeral

No family to console

But yet for all our distance

How terribly we grieve

The gentle giant we loved

For us the quiet centre

Heart of all our work

Ever there to listen then advise

Optimist and fixer

'Yes sure, why not?' he' d say

Where we saw stress and problems

Conflicts and dismay

He'd find a careful path

Possibilities, a way

His daily life was spartan

His needs were soon supplied

How sad, unjust, he faced so many foes

Who failed to value what he did

But seeking first their own advancement

Quite overlooked his goodness

His big heart

And trampled on his dreams

Always a tightrope, diplomatic

To be walked

Merely to survive

I close my eyes and hear him laugh

Bright joy is in his eyes

And now forever in our hearts, held dear

Our much beloved friend

Our 'Imms'

David Immanuel

September 20th 2010, en route to England, for those of us who loved him

September's song

September’s song

Crisp and brown, heads down
No more responsive to the hours
The sunflowers sorry stand
Where once they shocked
Battalions dazzling yellow
The early autumn fruits
Reds russets plums
Are ready for the jar, preserving pan
And soon the lanes and fields will fill
As grapes are harvested,
Heaped in trucks and trundled to the vats
Overhead in flocks bee-eaters noisy churr
The swifts black scythes the swallows
Streaming swoop, more homely martins
Criss-cross in aerobatic show
All readying for off
For flying further south
Summer’s heat is tempered
The year’s in dying fall

farewell

fugue

September's plangent song

13th September 2010, Hounoux

Occasion of friendship

Occasion of friendship

Fresh as a daisy you stand there
Ready to take the plunge
Occasion of friendship, join me?
An offer not lightly spurned

But me I’m an evening person
Not known for an early start
For perky and bold
For go-for-it chaps
More gradual creep than gung-ho

Still, offer of friendship I’ll take it
Gingerly hand in hand
We’ll gasp and we’ll groan
At ice in the pool
Then afterwards grin and be glad
Declare it a treat
Feel proud of our feat
And breakfast with virtuous glow

11th September 2010, Hounoux, for Lyn

St Remy

St Rémy

So sad you said
To see his cell
Asylum, St Rémy
Though tranquil in the cornfields
Cypress, southern landscape
Inspiration for his art
So sad the ferment, turmoil
Could not be endured
Brimmed bursting spilled
His lovely vision
Inner eye
His broken human heart

August 11th 2010, Hounoux, for Pam R

There's not so very much I know

There’s not so very much I know

There’s not so very much I know
Hard facts I could parade
For gasps of admiration
Almost no dates, bar birthdays
Not how electricity works (though frequently explained)
About a dozen telephone numbers
There’s not so very much I know
Not enough to defend beliefs
Dawkins, locate Jupiter
With her moons
Or turn a green pool blue
But this summer clamorous
I learned to hear the churr-churr calls
Then spot Bee-eaters’ swoop
Flash of yellow, blue and green
Remembered the Scarce Swallowtail
Black and white
Felt the dry stick shock
Of Praying Mantis accidental in my hair
Fell in love with coreopsis
Orange orange orange
Saw how to free a hornet with a jar
To paint the sky and fields
In water colour, pen and ink
Eye-balled sunflowers, face to face
Took first steps in photography
Aperture and shutter speed
In sweet Italian tongue

No matter that it’s not enough
To hold my own, to trump your words
With mine
I’ll wrap my lovely learning
Fragile facts
With tender loving care
Protect them in a poem
Glass bubbles, beautiful and rare

5th September 2010, Hounoux, for all of us women

Unsung

Unsung

Fill your house with people
Friends, family, dropping by
Or staying for a while
Three bathrooms occupied
Dishwasher, every bed,
The kitchen sink
Permanently full
A push and pull
A tussling round the pool
Dining table, test match
Television
Which conversation will prevail
Topic win the hour
Bird song, identification
How the French do it
Say it, moot grammatical point
The impossibility of God
Or homeopathy
Our children’s choices
Partners, baby names
Red or white, or being summer
Rosé perhaps

Fill your house with people
Day and night
For weeks on end,
Note the moon cycling
Silently, no fuss
Just what it does, eternally
And listen, if you’ve but a mindful minute
The sound of the unwritten words
Beads scattered from the string
Unstrung
In the dust and darkness, not shining
Only the gist of a poem
Fractured
Only the gist, unsung

31st August 2010, Hounoux