This day, today

This day, today

If I could paint this day, today
Or sing it in a song, bind it
In a book between the covers
Or on film, in photograph
Model it in clay
Stitch it onto fabric
Dance it, write a symphony
This day, today
I would
The still, the sun
Sweet scent of smoke
White wires across the blue
Sky lit luminous
The still, just one
Pale rose, low whisper
Breeze, unbending cypress trees
Martins’ sudden swoosh
Faint across the foothills
Tractor harvesting
And me the frog mechanical
Languid in the pool
Lovely liquid dappled blue golds green
Luscious sheen

From deep red dawning day, today
It bursts and brims
As laughter lights the soul
Gilded gift
Ephemeral Mayfly one-day fly
Perfection come this day

14th September 2011, Hounoux

Danced in the spaces

Danced in the spaces

This this she said

The  dart and the  dip and the dive

Swift and swallow  streaming, look, arrived

Or the sudden swirl in the sky

Bee-eater fly-past churr-churr, on high

Or patter and bob, small wren

Two steps  stop then, ear-cocked

This this the jizz she said

A very essence imprint, how to be

From hatchling all life long

Their song

Their going with the flow, glorious

Their thing, jizz and jing, spread wide the wing

So watch and wait

The dancer tiptoe, still

Then flown

Unleashed the artist lost in oils, transcending

Or guitarist, magic on the strings,

Jizz and jing

Watch and wait, danced in the spaces

Swum in the sky

The wonder and secret, song of the soul

Binding and winding, making us whole

Very essence jizz,  dazzled bling

Yearned for, sweetest, glorious thing

6th September 2011, Hounoux,

Egg brown boy

Egg brown boy

All over sun-skin egg brown boy
Summer child wild, breeze-free
Lost among raspberries peas and beans
Picking and pottering
A long-day dream
You wander and wonder at tree frogs and bees
Lizards basking on walls
You’re brave as a merboy bobbed on the waves
Dazed in the moment, dear lord of your dance
And spinning and weaving
With effortless grace
You bind us all in your spell
Oh sweetest enchantment, beloved enchantment
Beautiful egg brown boy

30th August, 2011, Hounoux

Shimmer dance smile

Shimmer dance smile

And so this summer’s sun-baked
Memories in moments
Shimmer dance smile
Small bodies perfect, squeal and splash
A tiny beetle glows golden
Old friends fore-gathered, wedding guests
Who’ve lent an ear, a hand to help
A precious girl turned teenager
Over and over beds filled, re-filled
Endless the washing drying on the line
Ottolenghi’s best suggestions, eagerly devoured
Coming and going, airport runs,
Wild clematis shining silver rampant on the fence
Field flowers, lavender twisted, twined
With gentian blue
And small roses, dusky pink
All of us here, family, friends
Come for the moment
Suspended in sunshine, surely
Stepped from a dream?
The bride in her loveliness, happiest of days
Bridesmaids and page boys
Too beautiful
Poems and love songs, vows turning to tears
Times to remember indelibly etched
All down the years
Churr of the bee-eaters bright in the blue
This summer’s sun-baked forever memories
Shimmer dance smile

22nd August 2011, Hounoux

Love Song

Love Song

Today you asked me to write you a poem, custom-made
To read at your wedding
Of course! I replied, thinking
Just you try and stop me!
This request, coming right after ‘Would you like to come shopping for my dress?’
And ‘Could I try and help you with some needles?’
And biggest and best of all ‘ Would you be with us at the birth?’
So you see the pattern here emerging
The giving in your asking
Our special girl, for both of us, such consolation
A gift after grief
Good news after sad
So glad we posted you in the Guardian
Big-eyed baby who learned (six months no more I swear)
To pull a face and make me laugh
Before 5, to write me billet-doux
Love letters ‘I love you mummy’
Signed Rosie Whittingham
What else can I tell you
Stories you know, oft repeated
The four changes of outfit, minimum
Strewn on your bed, before school
Which custom, Jay says, survives to this day
Telling us perhaps you never have known
Understood, how beautiful you are
Our special girl, daughter and sister
Friend, partner and mum
A gift to us all
If you want someone to lean on, listen
Stand by you in the dark
Then Rosie is your girl
Though perhaps we have to say-
For all the evidence points this way-
She’s Jay’s now, and Luca’s too of course
Fate and chance and previous dire misfortune
Having hurled them together one night, just before Christmas
Drink and music and partying possibly
Having their role to play
And we who loved her always
Had hoped her luck would change
Sighed collectively, relief profound
Finding Jay not only easy on the eye
But decent in his soul
As kind and loving as her dad
-No higher complement Jay-
Together the two of you, the best a boy could want
Creating a home and a life
Full of love
My mother’s wish for all of you
Rosie, Jay, Luca and siblings yet to come
Is taken from a song
Though panic not, you’re spared
No singing on this day
Just heartfelt words I’ll say with love
A prayer from us all

May the long time sun shine on you
All love surround you
And the pure light within you
Guide your way on

August 2010, read at Rosie's wedding to Jay on 6th August 2011, Gayda.

Oh I have put the moon in a box

Oh I have put the moon in a box

Oh I have put the moon in a box
Along with the swoosh of the sea
Yes I have sealed the moon with a lock
And hidden the silver key

I hauled it in on the brightest night
With a lasso made of silk
It traced a path of the whitest light
And all the world was gilt

Tomorrow in vain to yearn for tide
No more the magic pull
Beyond the horizon far and wide
Nowhere the moon is full

Oh I have put the moon in a box
Too beautiful to see
I tied it up to make it stay
Queen by night and ghost by day
Yes I have sealed the moon with a lock
To keep it just for me

26th July 2011, Hounoux and Brighton

Here is the wonder

Here is the wonder

In the toss and the turn

The deep of the night, churn

Of the unquiet brain

Fretting in furrows back and forth

Over again over again

When solace of sleep’s in slippery slide

Ever-evasive, far and wide

Will not be coaxed to rest and stay

But jitters and jumps and darts away

Then in the starless dreamless dark

Pacing the hiss of silence, hark!

Pattern of chimes to tell the hours

Strung like a chain of hedgerow flowers

A necklace of notes to punctuate

Almost a lullaby, wait oh wait

Picture the mountain scene at dawn

Meadows of daisies danced this morn

Bright in the sunlight foxglove splash

A chasing of swallows swoop and dash

In the toss and the turning, deep of night

The creep of the hours from dark till light

The ravel of cares that won’t be smoothed

Fretful as fever left un-soothed

Here is the wonder, come instead

A movie reel inside my head

And keeping in step with chiming bell

A poem forms

and

all

is

well.

Newnham on Severn, 3a.m 4th July 2011