At sea, blue

Deep milk blue,

the innocence of you. 
Your eyes dependent,
loving, needing,
sleep depriving,
limpet clinging. 

Deep silk blue, 
the playfulness of you.
Your eyes sparkling,
laughing, asking,
security seeking, 
safely anchored to me.

Deep grey blue, 
the loving of you,
your eyes alone.
Desired, cherished.
Safeguarded. 
Mainstay, 
my heart tends to you.

Attend flashing green eyes.

Set your course home and live on these rocks with me. 
I'm at sea without you, 
blue. 

Truth

Wisdom to learn

Knowledge to reason

Judgement to listen

Courage to speak

Understanding to love

Reverence to worship

Wonder to live

Winter was coming

I didn't see the seasons,

I missed the glistening, powder puff snow
that lay on the cold, hard ground
only fading away at Easter.

Crashing thunder and a deluge
which soaked the fields,
quietened and dried without a second glance.
New green leaves unfurled alone. 

Then the sun beat down hot for months on end.
Summer clung on in warm strong winds.
Conkers fell all at once. 

All I saw was you.

Then I looked up and winter was coming.

The Last Day of Us Unshared

It didn't go to plan.

Much was left undone. 

Your arrival tore me in two
and made me the one
to care for you
in every waking hour, 
to mind you with your brother, 
to teach you two to love each other. 

And whilst now I must be torn again
and divide myself between you three, 
my husband and my boys.

In six months unshared,
I hope the one thing I did not leave undone

was to pass the love, and peace and gentleness
you gave me at your birth
back to you, and to our family.

Enfolded

One year.
One year you've been in my arms,
not counting the months
you grew inside me.

One year and nine months -
let's face it -
you didn't know
you weren't me

until one day -
you became you -
 - and I became I
once more.

But, I am still you,
defined by love.
My image remoulded
because you're enfolded

in my arms.

No you

I saw from the window of my car,
As I was speeding by,
An old man.

He walked like you, Da,
one short shaky step after another,
looking forward with concentrated eyes
that told me in no uncertain terms
that this was work.

The world had changed
from a place of confidence and freedom
to a whirlwind of frighteningly infrequent familiarity.
Parenthood, no you.

You would, as you walked on your shaky pins,
give a characteristic wave and a happy smile.
To see a friendly face, a welcome in the road,
made you happy.

Now, I looked in the rear view mirror,
and glimpsed the new,
my unfamiliar, familiar future.
The one I named after you, Da.

And I wanted to stop the car,
and chase after the old man,
and show him,
and watch him smile,
that I might glimpse what your smile might have been.

How precious the young,
how precious the old.

TwentyPoemsYoung

I just want to keep a record of some poems which I draft every now and then, and collect them like stamps, so I can look again. They may become 'used' and 'redundant' - kindling for the fire, but perhaps, just one, might become a 'collectors item'. Even if the only one who collects it is me.