Mirror (Sonnet)

Another poem from my book, ‘Dancing in the Rain’

Bevelled edge of leafy flowers and vines
a keepsake that I hang upon my wall.
This mirror that I see before me shines;
it seems the years were minutes after all.
Sweetest face you are never far from me,
memories like a favourite food each day
and in my heart I know I’ll ever see
the way you always helped me find my way.
And now that time has passed and you are gone
I see a person looking back at me,
she’s older wiser and a little drawn
and though I know it’s me who I can see
you’re looking back and smiling at the grey
and in this glass it’s you I see each day.

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Fragrant Life

Fragrant Life – Villanelle

How sweet the fragrance of my life today
The perfumed past comes drifting clearly by
Much sweeter as the moments fly away

Your skin upon the grass that summer’s day
The scent of love-filled air and you nearby
How sweet the fragrance of my life today

Wild roses and petunia seemed to pray
Raised aromatic psalms towards the sky
Much sweeter as the moments fell away

And honeysuckle vines did gently sway
As you gazed deeply then into my eyes
How sweet the fragrance of my life today

Those heady lilac days were here to stay
We drank our fill, our senses rising high
Much sweeter as the moments seeped away

Now the scent of memories comes to play
Aromas I will cling to till I die
How sweet the fragrance of my life today
More haunting as the years slip faraway.

Simmering Past

 

Most of the time it sleeps,
the measured snoring of an old dog
content in a warm bed
of lessons we have learned.

So when we meet today we
tiptoe and whisper.
I tell you how poetry
leaped out of the blue,
led to writing a book.
You tell me how you built a sunken garden
at the back of the house,
surprised by your own success.
We swap photos of grandchildren

Then there is a pause – a long one.

We decorate the silence with laughter
at words on the menu like
‘chai latte’ and ‘flat white’
and how it seems these days
you need a steam engine to
make a cup of coffee.

Memories begin to surface;
they grapple in search of sunlight
and there is movement,
something stirring, restless.
I hear a deep, laboured sigh
then a troubled groan;
I think you hear it too.
The whole building shivers.

Mirror – (Sonnet)

Mirror

Bevelled edge of leafy flowers and vines
a keepsake that I hang upon my wall.
This mirror that I see before me shines;
it seems the years were minutes after all.
Sweetest face you are never far from me,
memories like a favourite food each day
and in my heart I know I’ll ever see
the way you always helped me find my way.
And now that time has passed and you are gone
I see a person looking back at me,
she’s older wiser and a little drawn
and though I know it’s me who I can see
you’re looking back and smiling at the grey
and in this glass it’s you I see each day.

Elephant Trousers

It seems that summer has given up,
gloomy, overweight clouds
sagging, grey-bellied.
Although a salvaged remnant of
watery blue breaks through,

like the fabric you bought for my dress;
I’d had my eye on it for weeks,
faded, outstayed welcome in
shop window, scrap-box demoted.
Nice and cheap though
and you had enough
broderie anglaise trimming at home
to brighten it up.

Out came the Singer;
how I loved that machine,
its treadle and spools, smell of oil
and complicated attachments –
Please don’t play with those.
Your stoical fast pedaling full of purpose.
You showed me how to use it,
delicate threads of patience
stitched into every pin-pricked lesson,
with yards and yards of laughing love.

I can see you now
looking up at today’s clouds.
There isn’t enough blue sky up there
to sew an elephant a pair of trousers,
I hear you say.