Lynne Rees's Blog, page 7

Poem ~ two things this morning

two things this morning

a ragged V of geese

and a field punctured with new grass

fine as thread

sometimes we have to leave

before we can return

and find ourselves again

Poem ~ All that matters

Last night I dreamt myself into a poetry readingbefore an audience of hundreds – outdoors,sunshine, cheers and applause before I’d read a single word and a quickening around my heart that carried both anxiety and excitement as I leafed through the books in my hands trying to find the marked pages, the poems I’d already chosenbut knowing at the same time all that matterednow would be the choices I'd make in that momentand the next. And I looked up. I smiled. I spoke.  

Prose poem ~ The world made beautiful

The world made beautiful

While I am waiting at the traffic lights just past B&Q I notice two young boys walking along the pavement on the other side of the road, no more than 10 or 11 and bare-chested in the Indian Summer sunshine, their t-shirts folded so carefully and tucked inside the waistband of their shorts with such precision I’m sure they must have copied an older brother or a dad or perhaps an older boy at school … you know, the one popular with everyone for his style, his smile, how everything he does seems so cool.

And then the lights change but the boys stay with me as I drive home: their brightness, the way they almost bounced when they walked, laughing together, hands straying unconsciously to the folded cloth at their waist. And I struggle to name what I have encountered which feels like much more than youth and joy. But perhaps that’s simply what it was and the light magnified and distilled it all in that moment of stillness when I stepped out of myself and into the world made beautiful by people I have never met. 

Poem ~ Stage

 Stage

Seven months on and the world keeps delivering 

your absence: this morning an email reminder 

from Moonpig about your birthday.  You’d be 94. 

Then later, in the chemist, an elderly man, who must have fallen 

outside, sitting by the door while a masked young woman 

cleaned and dressed the wound on his arm.

It’s the gentleness that tears at my heart, his and hers. 

And I remember the kindness of a neighbour who helped you 

home when you’d walked too far along the prom.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ you used to ask as you watched 

the man you knew you were slipping from your grasp. 

Oh Daddy, why can’t I just remember the good times?

Bingo, helping you with your Spanish homework, the time 

we went to Laugharne together to Dylan’s boathouse, 

how you used to say to me, ‘You’re just like your mother.’ 

But still, after all these months, when the curtain first 

goes up on my memory it is the latter darkness 

that steps towards the footlights. I have to believe

this will pass, that grief will loosen its shroud

and the stage will flood with light and I will be

filled with joy, with the grace of your well-lived life. 

1951

Photo haiku

the easing of grief

a stone beneath the cypress

becomes a small frog

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/may-haiku-challenge/

haiku

the easing of grief

a stone beneath the cypress

becomes a small frog

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/may-haiku-challenge/

Poem ~ For Mam and Dad

I am 63 today and it is my first birthday without my parents. Daddy died on 22nd December 2020. Mammy died on 25th March 2021. 

In 1967 or 1968, while we were staying with my Dad's sister and family in Hemel Hempstead, we took a day trip into London, and, of course, Trafalgar Square was a principal destination. 

Like in so many people's family photos, my parents are 'missing' here. But I am deeply grateful for their unwavering presence for almost 63 years - their unconditional love, their generosity, their kindness. They were loved by so many. They still are. 

For Mam and Dad

No one can see you
but we know you are there
behind the camera
in the same way we know
you are still with us now.
in our blood, in each cell,
even the breaths we take:
we breathe you in, hold you
for a short while, before
we have to let you go.
You ebb and flow in us
like the tide, wax and wane
like the moon. You are still
our earth, our eternal sky.

Prose poem ~ Not finding, and finding

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Some concrete rubble at the base of a tree on the plateau of Gallows Hill is all that is left of the Trig Point pillar I came to find. And anyway, there’s no longer a clear view from here: the North Downs are only a glimpse through the thicket of trees covering the side of the hill running down to the main road; any neighbouring trig points completely invisible, or similarly crumbled. 

Not everything remains. We don’t find. And then we find other things that keep us connected to the world. Like this wrought iron gate I’ve passed so many times, leaning against trees and waiting to be hung from the stone pillars of Windmill House, suddenly meeting its partner and revealing its secret of peacocks, their beaks meeting, their plumed tails a swirl and rise of burnished metal. 

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Gifts are everywhere. Even the air this morning, a little warmer. 

Poem ~ Remembering, Mammy

Remembering,  Mammy

1932 - 2021

You couldn’t recall the name of the blue plant

flowering next to the miniature daffodils

 

when I asked and it annoyed you.

‘I used to have such a good memory,’ you said

 

as we sat drinking tea together in the garden room

warmed by the Spring sunshine.

 

The next morning the first word you said to me

when I came downstairs was ‘Muscari’.

 

I want to always remember that.

I want to always remember everything. 

Remembering, Mammy

Remembering,  Mammy

1932 - 2021

You couldn’t recall the name of the blue plant

flowering next to the miniature daffodils

 

when I asked and it annoyed you.

‘I used to have such a good memory,’ you said

 

as we sat drinking tea together in the garden room

warmed by the Spring sunshine.

 

The next morning the first word you said to me

when I came downstairs was ‘Muscari’.

 

I want to always remember that.

I want to always remember everything.