January Bird Table

Black shadows in surrounding trees
Wait for the provider on January mornings,
For one who holds a few of the keys
To avian winter survival.

Water, seeds, nuts and fat,
Bread if it’s brown and crumbs of cake,
Break the ice, shoo the cat,
First of jobs on a January morning.

A blackbird flies to the apple basket,
Pecks and pecks again and again,
The sweetness of summer it’s her task to eat,
To carry her on to vernal survival.

As dusk descends I hope they’re full,
Warm for the night, fluffed on their roosts.
Waiting for morning and the golden jewels
Flaming above the horizon, their signal for flight.

MSK

It's September tomorrow so winter is on its way.

Autumn

Crisp autumn mornings give me something of my childhood;
The chill in the air, the sun bright-shining,
Diamond strung cobwebs, touch some hidden cord
Which reaches back through time
To that distant happiness. They rouse the wish
To trample rustling leaves deeply lying in their
Red-gold masses under glorious trees,
Trees ripe for climbing in those far off days
Before the turmoil of newly attained adulthood
Swept away the child’s world
Into the fine-wrought halls of memory.

Before breakfast

A Welsh Harp Walk

I like to make collages but this is only a lazy picasa 2 made one.
At least it is from my own photos.

This is a sweet little Victorian House which belonged to my Grandmother Rosetta. When I was a little girl I

had 48 farthings saved in it. I felt rich. It was originally intended to be a money box. It is now about 120 years old.

Looking Back Through Memory’s Veil

I look back through memory’s veil
To that distant child living through history
And approaching chaos.
What in that early time led to the present being?
A variety of influences played their parts:
That fearsome headmaster , tall and ramrod straight,
Was countered by parents of tolerant authority.
There was a brother so small and so determined in his play,
So full of imagining ,
So much an individual.
Wide fields and tall trees were there
For love of the wilderness and joy of freedom.
Fetes and concerts divided the year, each to its own season.
A witch’s deserted hovel was a place of terror.
Never to be entered.
Death was a part of it,
A well loved Grandad taken in old age.
Many of poverty’s children were a part of that time,
Poorly clad scraps of humanity with
Noses so runny, faces so dirty and plimsolled feet in pouring rain.
“Land of Hope and Glory?”
Later there was the convent ,
An austere place of black-robed gliding figures,
The smell of polish, lead pencils and yesterday’s dinner.
Crocodiles of schoolgirls demurely curtsey passing Reverend Mother
Hiding their frolicksome hearts beneath severely uniformed exteriors.
That French nun who taught us the Marseillaise,
Was she homesick?
Trees, river marshes, those fields so wide and free
Awaited the return from days at the desk
And academic enforcement.
Was there ever such freedom again
As the holidays brought?
There was time to run, time to climb,
Woodland exploration and riverside adventures with laughing companions.
But there was also fear.
Fear of the rapidly approaching dread shadow of conflict
Sometimes entered the child’s mind,
Momentarily blotting out childhood.
The sharp axe of war crashed down,
Slicing through that far off world with terrible sureness.
Somewhere, beyond eternity, do those sun-lit children still play?