A selection of my poetry.
Can You Imagine
Can you imagine a sky,
so blue and clear and soft,
that it takes the lid off the top of your head
and empties the contents out,
to run naked,
joyous and carefree.
I grew up under just such a sky.
The air moved about my shoulders,
as a mother would.
Wanting only to protect.
But the ground beneath my feet was sharp and prickly.
Thorns hid and multiplied,
in the patchy grass,
waiting to catch the unwary.
Forcing us to move on.
Our small children’s games
were touched by an extra awareness
of what might lie in the grass,
or the sand around it.
Something more than a sharp elbow,
or a small fist.
Thus, Mother Nature taught us,
always to be on the alert,
no matter what we were about.
Thin and wiry,
we grew up far from our origins,
in a sunlit land,
leading an outdoors life,
unafraid,
but tough and rugged.
Winter’s joys and woes were unfamiliar.
No card playing on long dark evenings,
toes wriggling with prickly heat,
too near a hot fire side,
as children in England did.
The race over the sun-hot sands,
to reach the oceans edge.
Our singing heat kissed bodies,
rolling over and over,
in the cool waves of the Blessed Indian Ocean,
on a Southern African beach.
The African Night
The African night of my childhood
was deliciously dark
it held no real fear
only imagined terrors
if it suited me to do so
I would walk through it without a second thought
these nights of my memory were warm
like a mother’s arms around one and
always humid
so it stood to reason that the only covering
one needed were the stars, or a sheet,
and that was only there to keep the
bloodsucking mosquitoes off.
And the softly thudding hawk moths from bumbling into
my face, or any other part of my
body, for that matter.
I would cocoon into my bedsheets
to keep the bugs out.
Compared to life in America we
lived so close to the Earth, tho’ I never
thought of it in those terms.
We dealt with houseflies, carrion flies, horse flies.
Then there were a gazillion different types of ant—including flying ants.
These would rise up out of an unobtrusive hole in the ground at night; at an invisible signal, in their
thousands and form great clouds
wherever there were pools of light.
By daybreak they had lost their wings and the invasion was over,
just copulating twos here and there, long narrow crunchy bodies connected together.
Then there were sand-fleas, dog-fleas and cat-fleas.
They were a dreadful nuisance and could wreak havoc on our pets and in our homes.
As always, in nature, if you know enough, there was a cure for all.
Indigenous to South Africa,
The repellent for fleas (and ticks) was the distinctive smelling Khakibos Grass.
My mother knew this
and grew it somewhere in her garden
When needed she would cut and spread it over the infected floor or carpet—
soon all would, once again, be well, harmony reigning,
until the next time.
“74”
There is a house
that once was a home,
it’s haunted now with ghosts
of the past
the past that still sits
like the present in my soul
life’s long journey has
moved on and what was
once a home is now no
longer one
leaking roof,
mould and damp
creep the walls
only ashes remain
and once treasured possessions
in cardboard
boxes.
There is no going
back
fate bangs its drum
on the edge of the river of life
and you the children
swim with the tide
eventually making your
own path
and there is no going back
but “74” sits in our hearts
and is our blessing and our strength
our touchstone,
full of sunshine and dark with our grief
