Poetry

Yellow

I hoped yellow things might save me –

bought tulips and freesias, tied a ribbon to my

bed frame. I plucked the hearts from daisies and tucked them

in my pillow slip, drew the curtains wide and waited for full moons

and sunshine. I lost contact with my knees first, and then my

hips. Didn’t know a body could fall silent. The doctor prescribed

dandelions – fields full, ticking with thrips and hover flies

and when I found one I stayed for days, but more parts of me

fell away –knuckles, wrists. Memories began to fade. Perhaps

it was too late. The X-rays suggested I was whole, but

disconnecting, and I knew I should’ve welcomed yellow back

before, because it was my first love, and I left it,

and it transpires that yellow is vital.

Poems

(& on a more lighthearted note…)

 

Poems can ruin your sleep

rattling round inside your head

throwing parties on your pillow

chattering underneath your bed…

 

When you’re trying to nod off

poems may decide it’s time

to send your brain off searching

for a Wow! word or a rhyme.

 

If in the dark you hear a frantic

banging at the door

don’t be surprised to find

a simile or metaphor.

 

So if you hope to sleep well

have less bother overnight

trap your poems down on paper

and lock them out of sight.

 

 

It’s World Poetry Day – hurrah for poems! Even though they may drive you crazy…

 

 

Grandmother

I wish you could see my daughter.

She is svelte, lithe, lissom. She is

lots of words you’d have to look up.

Put her in your crossword puzzle

under graceful. She’d be the house

prize at bingo. All the dreams you had

led to her. She’d love your trifle –

has a thing for cream, but you couldn’t

tell, not from looking. She’s a cat

and you liked cats. At night she plays the

violin and dances. Loves a full moon.

She’s like me but better. Not so well built.

Beautiful.  Don’t ask her if she has a

boyfriend yet – not ever. She is so clever,

I expect she gets it from her Dad.

So I stayed at school too long, lost myself

in books, but look where I’ve sent your

DNA – you wouldn’t actually believe it.

 

 

 

 

 

Saving daisies

Mown daisies recover well in water

where some survive for several

days, propping one

another up in

egg cups

unsure

if

they

are

d

o

o

m

e

d

or saved

 

Doomed daisies or saved daisies?  I used to think cut daisies were doomed, but have since amazingly discovered…

(after being in the company of an overly empathetic  person for who the demise of such daisies would cause too much distress)

…that these fragmented flowers can find their way back out to the lawn, when conditions have improved sufficiently to support daisy life again (usually following a few days), and in fact, that egg cups simply provide a means of life support…

“All the daisies are saved!” I’d proclaim, as the (newly sprouted) specimens swayed cheerfully upon their stalks, while I attempted to stifle a mounting worry that I hadn’t replaced the cover firmly enough on the compost bin… and that my daisy resurrection ruse might be rumbled…

But the relieved smile of my child shone brighter than a saved daisy on a sunny day, and that’s why, for a while, no severed daisy ever perished in my garden. I was the secret saviour of daisies, a mini miracle worker.

Sometimes people still tell me that autistic children don’t feel empathy…